September 10, 2025
2 min read
Your Name Could Orbit the Moon with NASA’s Artemis II
The public can submit names to travel along with four astronauts on an orbital journey to the moon next year
The Artemis I Space Launch System (SLS) rocket and Orion spacecraft sit at the launch pad for dress rehearsals at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida on June 14, 2022.
Your name could make it to the moon along with NASA’s Artemis II mission next year—the first time a crew will travel to Earth’s natural satellite in more than 50 years.
Anyone can submit their name in English here or Spanish here. The collected names will be included on an SD digital memory card that will be carried onboard the Orion capsule as it ferries four astronauts into orbit around the moon. The deadline to register is before January 21, 2026.
“This is one way for the public to feel like they’re a little closer to the mission than just being spectators,” says space collectibles expert Robert Pearlman, editor of the space memorabilia website collectSPACE. Everyone who enters their name can download a collectable “boarding pass” to commemorate the mission.
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NASA routinely offers similar opportunities on its space exploration missions. “Right now there are names aboard the Perseverance rover on Mars, the Parker Solar Probe at the sun and the Europa Clipper mission on its way to Jupiter’s moon Europa,” Pearlman says.
A commemorative virtual Artemis II boarding pass issued by NASA. Participants’ submitted names will fly around the Moon on an SD card inside the Orion spacecraft when the mission launches in 2026.
Artemis II is slated to lift off from NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida sometime by April 2026. It will launch onboard the agency’s Space Launch System (SLS) rocket—a heavy-lift vehicle that makes use of some recycled components from NASA’s space shuttle and that has been in development for more than a decade. The rocket, which hasn’t carried humans before, has come under fire for its gigantic $23-billion budget, outdated technology and delayed timeline. The nonreusable lifter will reportedly cost $5.7 billion for just this launch.
The Artemis II mission is part of NASA’s plan to resume deep-space exploration. In the Artemis I flight in 2022, an SLS rocket sent an uncrewed Orion spacecraft to the moon and back. If all goes well—and NASA receives enough funding—Artemis III will send astronauts to the moon’s surface for a stay of roughly a month, perhaps as soon as 2027.
Yet moon exploration is in some ways more difficult now than it was during the 1960s era of Apollo, even though we all have more computing power in our pockets these days than NASA had in entire buildings back then. The agency is struggling under threats of budget cuts and the possibility of losing out to China in the latest race to the moon.
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