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January 15, 2026<\/p>\n
4 min read<\/p>\n
Add Us On Google<\/span>Add SciAm<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n NASA\u2019s historic Artemis II moon mission is almost ready to launch<\/p>\n On Friday NASA laid out the time line for Artemis II, humanity\u2019s first crewed mission to the moon in more than 50 years<\/p>\n By Lee Billings edited by Claire Cameron<\/span><\/p>\n NASA\u2019s Space Launch System rocket awaits the arrival of Artemis II crew at NASA\u2019s Kennedy Space Center in Florida.<\/p>\n NASA\/Joel Kowsky (photograph); Scientific American (illustration composite)<\/p>\n Artemis II, humankind\u2019s first crewed lunar mission in more than 50 years, is finally nearing reality.<\/p>\n At a press conference on Friday, NASA officials laid out the time line for what will happen both on the days before the mission lifts off and during Artemis II\u2014and immediately afterward. Astronaut safety is the paramount priority, and the time line for launch could change, said John Honeycutt, Artemis II\u2019s mission management team chair, at the event.<\/p>\n \u201cI will tell you, we\u2019re going to fly when we\u2019re ready,\u201d Honeycutt said.<\/p>\n If you’re enjoying this article, consider supporting our award-winning journalism by subscribing. By purchasing a subscription you are helping to ensure the future of impactful stories about the discoveries and ideas shaping our world today.<\/p>\n \u201cArtemis II is a test flight. It truly is exploration,\u201d said Jacob Bleacher, chief exploration scientist at NASA\u2019s Exploration Systems Development Mission Directorate. \u201cThere will be a number of firsts that we will be proving out on this flight. I like to say that during exploration, science is our toolbox for survival.\u201d<\/p>\n The update came a day before one of the first major steps to getting Artemis II off the ground: on Saturday, after years of work, delays and anticipation, engineers at NASA\u2019s Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral, Fla., will begin rolling out the fully stacked Space Launch System (SLS) rocket and Orion spacecraft. The journey from the Vehicle Assembly Building to Launch Pad 39B will be a slow, stately crawl over roughly four miles that will take up to 12 days, culminating in easing the mission\u2019s hulking hardware onto the launch pad.<\/p>\n NASA\u2019s Crawler-Transporter 2 moves toward the Vehicle Assembly Building at NASA\u2019s Kennedy Space Center in Florida on January 9, 2026.<\/p>\n Once there, focus will turn to a series of important prelaunch tests. A critical milestone is a \u201cwet dress rehearsal,\u201d during which flight teams will load more than 700,000 gallons of cryogenic propellant and practice the countdown sequence\u2014pushing the spacecraft to its limits without astronauts onboard. During similar preparations for Artemis II\u2019s uncrewed predecessor, Artemis I, persistent problems with hydrogen leaks ultimately delayed that mission\u2019s launch for months. This time NASA is hoping the process will be much smoother. The earliest date in the mission\u2019s launch window is February 6.<\/p>\n If all goes according to plan, Artemis II will lift off on its historic journey carrying four astronauts\u2014NASA\u2019s Reid Wiseman, Victor Glover, and Christina Koch and Canadian Space Agency astronaut Jeremy Hansen\u2014on a 10-day flight around the moon and back: the Orion spacecraft will follow a free-return trajectory that uses the moon\u2019s gravity to loop the crew around and back toward Earth. Reaching about 4,700 miles beyond the lunar farside, the crew will go the farthest from Earth any humans have ever voyaged, ensuring not only rigorous system checks but also breathtaking views of our home planet\u2014and, of course, the moon.<\/p>\n During the mission, the crew will wear sensors to monitor their health and physiological responses to the deep-space environment beyond the moon. And among the myriad experiments packed into Artemis II\u2019s science payloads will be AVATAR (A Virtual Astronaut Tissue Analog Response), a system designed to mimic individual astronaut organs. Artemis II will be the first time AVATAR has been tested so far from Earth.<\/p>\n All that will help ensure future astronauts can \u201csurvive and thrive\u201d in deep space, Bleacher said. \u201cArtemis II\u2019s science is the science of us.\u201d<\/p>\n Left to right: Artemis II\u2019s crew members, NASA astronauts Reid Wiseman, Victor Glover, and Christina Koch and Canadian Space Agency astronaut Jeremy Hansen, pose together during a ground-systems test at Kennedy Space Center\u2019s Launch Pad 39B on September 20, 2023.<\/p>\n The mission\u2019s most breathtaking highlight, however, will probably be the view. The crew will dedicate about a day to observing the moon, especially its farside, which can\u2019t be seen from Earth. As the Orion capsule swoops around our natural satellite, Bleacher said, the moon will appear to the astronauts as about the same size as a basketball held at arm\u2019s length. And depending on the spacecraft\u2019s timing and trajectory, he added, \u201cit\u2019s possible they\u2019ll see parts of the moon that have never been viewed by human eyes.\u201d<\/p>\n The mission is the strongest stress test yet of NASA\u2019s Artemis program to return humans to the moon. Artemis II will demonstrate Orion\u2019s life support, navigation and operational systems in a deep-space environment\u2014the first such test since NASA\u2019s Apollo program ended more than a half-century ago.<\/p>\n \u201cWe want to put Orion through its paces,\u201d said Artemis II\u2019s lead flight director Jeff Radigan. \u201cThis is a test flight, and there\u2019s things that are going to be unexpected, you know. I think we\u2019ve prepared for those as much as we can.\u201d<\/p>\n Of particular concern is the Orion capsule\u2019s heat shield; during the uncrewed Artemis I test, the heat shield shed larger and more numerous chunks of ablative material than expected, raising safety concerns for future missions. NASA officials changed the plan for Artemis II\u2019s atmospheric reentry on its way back to Earth so that its Orion capsule heat shield will experience a shorter, but more intense, period of extreme heating. This tweak, officials say, should help ensure crew safety.<\/p>\n After the nail-biting reentry, Artemis II\u2019s crew will splash down off the coast of San Diego, Calif. But these astronauts\u2019 mission won\u2019t end there\u2014among the plethora of postflight tests that await them in the days after they return will be an \u201cobstacle course\u201d and simulated space walks in pressurized space suits to test the suits\u2019 functionality after going through a gravity transition. These tests will help gauge a crew\u2019s readiness for lunar surface operations.<\/p>\n That work, said NASA\u2019s landing and recovery director for Artemis II Liliana Villarreal, \u201cprepares us for landing on the moon [with Artemis III] and eventually, down the road, going to destinations such as Mars.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" January 15, 2026 4 min read Add Us On GoogleAdd SciAm NASA\u2019s historic Artemis II moon mission is almost ready to launch On Friday NASA laid out the time line for Artemis II, humanity\u2019s first crewed mission to the moon in more than 50 years By Lee Billings edited by Claire Cameron NASA\u2019s Space Launch<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":41960,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[50],"tags":[7387,1022,3164,2509,1615,1883,4737],"class_list":{"0":"post-41959","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-environment","8":"tag-artemis","9":"tag-historic","10":"tag-launch","11":"tag-mission","12":"tag-moon","13":"tag-nasas","14":"tag-ready"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/41959","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=41959"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/41959\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/41960"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=41959"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=41959"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=41959"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}On supporting science journalism<\/h2>\n