Artemis II — first crewed lunar flight since 1972

On 1 April 2026, NASA's Space Launch System Block 1 rocket lifted off from Kennedy Space Center Launch Complex 39B carrying four astronauts aboard the Orion spacecraft: Commander Reid Wiseman, Pilot Victor Glover, Mission Specialist 1 Christina Koch (the first woman on a deep-space mission), and Mission Specialist 2 Jeremy Hansen of the Canadian Space Agency — the first non-American astronaut on a deep-space mission.

Artemis II flew a free-return circumlunar trajectory, looping around the Moon without entering lunar orbit and relying on the Moon's gravity to slingshot the crew back toward Earth. The mission's primary purpose was to validate Orion's life support, navigation, communication, and re-entry systems with humans aboard in the deep-space radiation environment.

On 6 April, five days into the flight, Orion surpassed the 400,171-kilometre distance record set by Apollo 13 in April 1970, marking the first time any human had been that far from Earth in 53 years. The crew photographed Earth from a vantage point beyond the Moon before beginning their return.

Orion splashed down in the Pacific on 10 April 2026. The mission validated the Orion/SLS stack for Artemis III, which will attempt the first crewed Moon landing since Apollo 17 in December 1972.