As early as Wednesday, April 1, 2026, Artemis II made history, taking astronauts around the moon for the first time in more than 50 years.
The four-person crew launched from NASA’s Kennedy Space Center on Merritt Island, Florida, for a 10-day journey.
The trip will pave the way for future Artemis missions that could eventually see astronauts set foot on the moon and the building of a permanent lunar base.
Day 2 through to Day 4 would be an outbound transit, or the spacecraft heading towards the Moon, with Day 5 being the lunar flyby.
The spacecraft will pass within approximately 4,700 miles beyond the far side of the moon. This would be further than any humans have ever travelled in deep space.
Day 6 through Day 10 will see the return of the astronauts and re-entry into Earth’s atmosphere.
Victor Glover, Christina Hammock Koch, and Reid Wiseman of NASA and Jeremy Hansen of the Canadian Space Agency are the astronauts on board for the historic trip.
Koch will be the first woman, and Glover will be the first person of colour, to travel to the moon.
