NASA Begins Artemis 2 Countdown: First Crewed Moon Mission in 50 Years Set for April 1

NASA initiated the two-day countdown for the launch of the Artemis 2 mission on Monday, with the first launch window set to open on Wednesday, April 1, 2026, at 6:24 p.m. local time from Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral, Florida. The mission will send four astronauts — Commander Reid Wiseman, Pilot Victor Glover, Mission Specialist Christina Koch, and Canadian Mission Specialist Jeremy Hansen — on a ten-day journey around the Moon, marking the first crewed lunar mission in more than 50 years. The crew will travel aboard the Orion spacecraft, launched atop the Space Launch System rocket, the most powerful rocket NASA has built to date. „The spacecraft is ready, the system is ready. The crew is ready” — Amit Kshatriya via 20 Minuten Should the April 1 launch be delayed by weather or technical issues, NASA has identified several backup dates through Friday, with the next available window after that not opening until the end of April.

Crew makes history with three milestone firsts The four-person crew carries significant symbolic weight alongside its scientific objectives. Victor Glover, 49, will become the first person of color to fly on a lunar mission. Christina Koch will be the first woman ever to travel to the Moon's vicinity. Jeremy Hansen, a Canadian Space Agency astronaut, will be the first non-American to fly on a lunar mission. Commander Reid Wiseman, 50, leads the crew, which has been in quarantine ahead of the launch, though the astronauts were permitted to have dinner with their families at a beach house in Florida on Monday evening. The crew's training included extreme preparation exercises, among them days spent in underground caves in Italy to simulate isolation and disorientation in unknown environments. „There they learned how to master extreme situations and how to get by cut off from the outside world in a group without any privacy” — Rüdiger Seine via SRF News

Artemis 2 Mission Key Milestones: — ; — ; —

Crew will travel further from Earth than any human before The Orion spacecraft will carry the crew to a point approximately 7,500 kilometers behind the far side of the Moon, a distance no human has ever reached. At that point, the crew will lose all radio contact with Earth for roughly 45 minutes, as the Moon blocks all signals. The maximum distance from Earth during the mission will be approximately 370,000 kilometers, and the crew will cover a total of over the ten-day flight. During the Apollo 8 mission in 1968, astronauts flew on average only 110 kilometers above the lunar surface; the Artemis 2 crew will pass more than 6,500 kilometers above it, according to SRF News. The mission will not include a lunar landing — that milestone is reserved for a later mission. Launch Director Charlie Blackwell-Thompson expressed confidence ahead of the countdown, saying all indicators suggested the technology was in excellent condition.

The Artemis 2 mission follows Artemis 1, an unmanned test flight of the SLS rocket and Orion spacecraft that launched more than three years ago. The last crewed mission to the Moon's vicinity was Apollo 17 in December 1972, after which no human traveled beyond low Earth orbit. Between 1969 and 1972, a total of 12 American astronauts walked on the lunar surface under the Apollo program. The Artemis program, named after the goddess of the Moon and twin sister of Apollo in Greek mythology, aims to establish a long-term human presence on the Moon and eventually use lunar experience as a stepping stone toward crewed Mars missions.

Delays, program changes, and the road to 2028 The Artemis 2 launch has faced repeated postponements before reaching its current April 1 date. The mission was originally scheduled for February 2026 but was pushed back after hydrogen leaks were discovered during rocket tests. A subsequent attempt to launch in March was abandoned due to problems with the rocket's helium supply system, which required the vehicle to be moved back to its hangar for repairs. NASA has also revised the broader Artemis program structure: Artemis 3, which was originally planned as the first crewed lunar landing, has been redesigned as another test flight in low Earth orbit, focused on docking with commercial lunar landers and testing life-support and propulsion systems. The first crewed lunar landing in over 50 years is now targeted for Artemis 4, planned for 2028. The multibillion-dollar program is led by NASA with major contributions from the Canadian Space Agency and the European Space Agency.

Artemis Program Mission Changes: Artemis 3 objective (before: First crewed lunar landing, after: Test flight in low Earth orbit, docking with lunar landers); First crewed lunar landing mission (before: Artemis 3, after: Artemis 4 (planned 2028))