NASA plans to fly four astronauts around the moon in April, the first crewed lunar mission since Apollo 17 in 1972, after engineers resolved a helium leak that had grounded the rocket for weeks.
The Artemis II mission will use the 322-foot-tall (98-meter) Space Launch System paired with the Orion crew capsule. The 10-day flight will loop around the moon and return to Earth, with the crew testing critical systems and collecting data on how deep-space travel affects human biology. According to the announcement, the mission will send humans farther from Earth than any crewed flight in history.
Getting to this point has not been straightforward. A series of hydrogen leaks disrupted the first wet dress rehearsal, forcing engineers to scrub fueling attempts and roll the rocket back to the Vehicle Assembly Building for repairs. Arctic weather added further delays to ground testing. With those issues now addressed, the current launch window is described as NASA‘s final opportunity to meet its April deadline.
A Restructured Road Back to the Surface
A major overhaul of the broader Artemis program, announced in late February, reshaped what comes after this mission. Under the revised plan, NASA intends to shift to an annual launch tempo. Artemis III, now scheduled for 2027, will test lunar lander docking in Earth orbit rather than attempt a landing. That mission will also discard the Boeing-designed upper stage that had been part of the original architecture.
Crewed landing attempts come after that. Artemis IV and Artemis V are both scheduled for 2028, each targeting a lunar surface touchdown.
Artemis II itself carries significant weight regardless of what follows. No crew has traveled beyond low Earth orbit since the final Apollo mission more than five decades ago, and this flight represents the first operational test of the Orion capsule with humans aboard under the conditions of actual deep-space transit — radiation exposure, life support demands, and navigation loads that no simulation fully replicates.
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Four Crew, Ten Days, One Orbit of the Moon
The mission profile does not include a landing. The crew will fly a free-return trajectory around the moon, relying on lunar gravity to slingshot Orion back toward Earth, a route designed to validate systems before committing astronauts to a powered descent.
Whether the April window holds depends on no further technical anomalies emerging during pre-launch operations — a condition the program has struggled to meet consistently since testing began earlier this year.
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