NASA Sets April 1 Launch Date for Artemis II Crewed Moon Mission

More than half a century after the last Apollo astronauts left the lunar surface, four crew members are weeks away from becoming the first humans to see the Moon up close since 1972. On March 12, NASA unanimously cleared Artemis II for launch — but the path to this moment has been anything but smooth.

The Green Light

Following a comprehensive Flight Readiness Review at Kennedy Space Center on March 12, every team polled by NASA voted "go" to proceed toward launch [1][2]. The agency is now targeting April 1 at 6:24 p.m. ET for liftoff, with backup windows available on April 2 through 6 and again on April 30 [3].

"All the teams polled 'go' to launch and fly Artemis II around the moon," NASA confirmed in its official blog post following the review [1]. The announcement came after weeks of uncertainty caused by a helium-flow issue that forced engineers to roll the 322-foot-tall Space Launch System rocket back into the Vehicle Assembly Building for repairs in late February [4].

The four-person crew — commander Reid Wiseman, pilot Victor Glover, mission specialists Christina Koch and Jeremy Hansen — participated in the review remotely from Johnson Space Center in Houston. They are expected to enter quarantine around March 18 and fly to Cape Canaveral approximately March 27 [3].

A Crew That Makes History Before Leaving the Ground

The Artemis II crew roster, announced in April 2023, is itself a milestone. Victor Glover will become the first person of color to travel to deep space. Christina Koch will be the first woman to venture beyond low Earth orbit. And Jeremy Hansen, a Royal Canadian Air Force fighter pilot, will be the first non-American to reach the Moon's vicinity [5][6].

Reid Wiseman, 47, a Naval Aviator from Baltimore who flew combat missions over the Middle East, previously spent time aboard the International Space Station during Expedition 41. He holds engineering degrees from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute and Johns Hopkins University [5].

Victor Glover, the mission's pilot, brings a formidable résumé: six academic degrees spanning engineering, flight test, and systems engineering from institutions including Cal Poly, the Naval Postgraduate School, and Georgetown University. He served as pilot on NASA's SpaceX Crew-1 mission in 2020-2021, logging 168 days in space and four spacewalks [5].

Christina Koch is no stranger to endurance spaceflight. She set the record for the longest single spaceflight by a woman at 328 days aboard the ISS and participated in the first all-female spacewalks. She holds degrees in electrical engineering and physics from North Carolina State University [5].

Jeremy Hansen is the crew's wildcard in the best sense. Despite extensive training as a fighter pilot and years of service as a capsule communicator (CAPCOM) at NASA's Mission Control, Artemis II will be his first trip to space. He holds degrees in space science and physics from the Royal Military College of Canada [5][6].

The Mission: A 10-Day Figure-Eight Around the Moon

Artemis II will send the Orion spacecraft — which the crew has named Integrity — on an approximately 10-day journey covering more than 2 million kilometers [7][8]. The mission profile uses a multi-trans-lunar injection sequence: after launch aboard the SLS Block 1 rocket, Orion will complete two orbits of Earth before firing its engines to depart for the Moon in a figure-eight free-return trajectory [8].

The crew will fly approximately 6,400 kilometers (4,000 miles) above the lunar far side — a region no human has seen firsthand since Apollo 17's Gene Cernan, Ronald Evans, and Harrison Schmitt passed over it in December 1972 [7][8]. At its farthest point, Orion will travel approximately 10,400 kilometers beyond the Moon's far side [8].

The return will be dramatic. Orion will re-enter Earth's atmosphere at approximately 40,000 km/h (25,000 mph), making it the fastest crewed re-entry ever attempted [8]. The spacecraft will splash down in the Pacific Ocean off the coast of San Diego.

Unlike a lunar landing mission, Artemis II is fundamentally a test flight. The crew will verify that all of Orion's life-support systems, navigation, and communication capabilities function as designed in the deep-space environment — data critical to planning the eventual crewed lunar landing [7].

The Rocky Road to the Launch Pad

The path to April 1 has been marked by repeated delays and technical hurdles that tested NASA's patience and its budget.

Artemis II was originally targeted for November 2024 [9]. That date slipped to September 2025, then to April 2026 when NASA announced a further delay in December 2024, citing the need for more time to address technical issues identified during the Artemis I mission and in the manufacturing of components [9][10].

Even after the April 2026 window was established, problems continued. NASA initially hoped to launch in February 2026, but a hydrogen fuel leak issue surfaced during pre-flight preparations [10]. After that was resolved, engineers conducted a "wet dress rehearsal" — a full fueling test — on February 19, which itself went well. But the following morning, on February 21, technicians discovered that helium was not flowing properly through the rocket's upper stage [4][11].

The helium system is critical: it regulates pressures in the vehicle's fuel tanks and powers the rocket's engines. Engineers traced the problem to a blocked seal in a "quick disconnect" fitting — the connection point where helium flows from ground systems into the rocket [11]. The entire SLS stack was rolled back to the Vehicle Assembly Building on February 25 for repairs [4].

The fix required accessing components inside the launch vehicle stage adapter using special platforms in High Bay 3. Technicians removed the quick disconnect, replaced the seal, reassembled the system, and validated the repair by running helium at reduced flow rates [11]. Teams also took the opportunity to replace batteries on the flight termination system, upper stage, core stage, solid rocket boosters, and the Orion launch abort system [11].

Source: GDELT Project

Data as of Mar 13, 2026CSV

Billions Spent, Billions More to Come

The Artemis program's price tag has been a persistent source of scrutiny. NASA's Office of Inspector General estimated in 2021 that the program would cost approximately $93 billion through fiscal year 2025, encompassing spending dating back to 2012 [12]. By 2020, more than $40 billion had already been spent [12].

Each of the first four Artemis missions is estimated to cost $4.1 billion per launch — a figure that has raised eyebrows considering that in 2012, NASA officials projected per-mission costs of roughly $500 million [12][13]. The launch platform alone has ballooned to an estimated $2.5 billion, more than six times its original projected cost [12].

Congress has sought to stabilize funding through the "One Big Beautiful Bill" signed on July 4, 2025, which allocated approximately $9.9 billion in additional funding for key programs including SLS, Orion, and the Gateway lunar space station. The bill mandates a minimum of $1.025 billion per year for SLS from fiscal year 2026 through 2029 and provides $2.6 billion for the Gateway station [14].

For FY2026, the base Artemis budget stands at $7.8 billion [14]. Whether these investments will yield a sustainable lunar presence — or merely the most expensive flags-and-footprints sequel in history — remains one of the program's central questions.

What Artemis I Proved — and What It Didn't

The foundation for Artemis II was laid on November 16, 2022, when the uncrewed Artemis I mission launched successfully after years of its own delays — the program had accumulated 25 scrubbed or delayed launch attempts before finally getting off the ground [9][15].

Over its 26-day mission, the uncrewed Orion spacecraft traveled approximately 270,000 miles beyond the Moon, completing 161 test objectives — including 20 added mid-flight [15]. The European-built service module exceeded expectations, generating 20% more power than predicted while consuming 25% less [15]. Post-flight analysis confirmed that both SLS and Orion performed with "a high degree of precision and accuracy" [15].

But Artemis I also revealed issues. NASA identified concerns with the Orion heat shield's performance during re-entry and discovered problems with components that needed to be addressed before putting humans aboard [10]. Those fixes contributed to the series of delays that pushed Artemis II from late 2024 to early 2026.

Source: NASA / Space.com / CNN

Data as of Mar 13, 2026CSV

Beyond Artemis II: A Shifting Lunar Roadmap

What comes after Artemis II has been in flux. In late February 2026, NASA Administrator Jared Isaacman announced a significant restructuring of the Artemis program's next steps [16].

Artemis III, originally envisioned as the mission that would return American astronauts to the lunar surface for the first time since 1972, has been rescheduled to mid-2027 — but it will no longer include a Moon landing [16][17]. Instead, Artemis III will serve as a rendezvous and docking test in low Earth orbit, potentially testing one or both of the commercially developed lunar landers: SpaceX's Starship Human Landing System and Blue Origin's Blue Moon [16].

The first actual crewed lunar landing has been pushed to Artemis IV, tentatively planned for early 2028 [16]. SpaceX's Starship, which was selected in April 2021 to serve as the lunar lander, has faced its own development delays, prompting NASA to open bidding to other companies in October 2025 [16].

This reconfiguration means that even if Artemis II launches on schedule on April 1, American boots on the Moon remain at least two years away — and likely more, given the program's track record with timelines.

The Stakes of April 1

For NASA, Artemis II represents more than a test flight. It is a credibility test for the entire Artemis architecture — the SLS rocket, the Orion spacecraft, and the ground systems at Kennedy Space Center. A successful mission would validate the billions spent and provide the technical confidence needed to proceed toward an actual lunar landing.

For the crew, the personal stakes are immense. Jeremy Hansen, the Canadian mission specialist, will go from having never been to space to flying farther from Earth than any human before him. Christina Koch and Victor Glover will shatter barriers that have stood since the dawn of the space age. And Reid Wiseman will command the most ambitious crewed space mission in over 50 years.

The SLS rocket is scheduled to roll out to Launch Pad 39B on March 19 [4]. If all goes according to plan, approximately two weeks later, four astronauts will strap themselves atop the most powerful rocket ever flown and ride it toward the Moon.

After more than half a century of waiting, three years of Artemis delays, and a last-minute seal replacement, the countdown is finally on.