NASA’s SLS rocket and Orion capsule stand on Launch Complex 39B ahead of Artemis II on Feb. 1, 2026. Miguel J. Rodriguez Carrillo / AFP via Getty Images

The last time the U.S. sent astronauts to the Moon was Apollo 17 in 1972. More than half a century later, NASA is preparing to do it again. Artemis II, the agency’s first crewed mission of the Artemis era, will send four astronauts on a 10-day loop around the Moon to demonstrate that its new rocket and crew capsule can carry people to lunar distance and return them safely to Earth. NASA had been targeting an early-February launch, but after a liquid-hydrogen leak during late-stage testing, the agency is now targeting launch opportunities no earlier than March, with additional windows in April if needed.

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The crew—Reid Wiseman, Victor Glover, Christina Koch, and Canadian Space Agency astronaut Jeremy Hansen—will lift off from Kennedy Space Center in Florida inside NASA’s Orion capsule atop the Space Launch System, the agency’s heavy-lift Moon rocket. They’ll depart from Launch Complex 39B, one of Kennedy’s most storied pads, which previously supported Apollo 10 as well as crewed Skylab and Apollo-Soyuz missions. Next door, Launch Complex 39A—used during the Apollo era and later by the space shuttle—is now used for NASA’s regular SpaceX Crew Dragon missions to the International Space Station.

Wiseman will command the mission, with Glover as pilot and Koch and Hansen as mission specialists. All four are veteran aviators, and three have already flown in space: Wiseman previously served as a NASA........

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