Artemis II Ready to Go on April 1, Weather Permitting
Artemis II is scheduled to lift off from Launch Complex 39B at Kennedy Space Center on Wednesday, April 1, 2026 at 6:24 p.m. ET. NASA Associate Administrator Amit Kshatriya announced a “go for launch” after today’s Mission Management Team meeting, noting that no technical issues remain and that weather conditions are 80 percent favorable. The four‑person crew—Commander Reid Wiseman, Pilot Victor Glover, Mission Specialists Christina Koch and Jeremy Hansen (CSA)—have been in quarantine at Johnson Space Center since March 18 and arrived at Kennedy on Friday.
The Space Launch System, built by Boeing, will fire its Aerojet Rocketdyne RS‑25 engines together with two Northrop Grumman solid rocket boosters, while the United Launch Alliance‑provided Interim Cryogenic Propulsion Stage will propel the Orion spacecraft and its Lockheed Martin/Airbus service module. Exploration Ground Systems contractor Amentum, launch director Charlie Blackwell‑Thompson, MMT chair John Honeycutt and chief flight director Emily Nelson oversaw the countdown that began at 4:34 p.m. ET, with the first tick occurring ten minutes later. An intense solar flare posed no risk, and Orion’s radiation shelter—located under the cabin floor and shielded by stowage bags—will be ready for any high‑radiation event. Abort options include a launch‑abort system for a near‑pad abort, an untargeted Atlantic abort near Africa, and an abort‑once‑around maneuver with splashdown near San Diego. After a day in low‑Earth orbit to test Orion and the service module, the spacecraft will execute a trans‑lunar injection burn, follow a free‑return trajectory past the Moon, and travel up to 252,799 miles (406,841 km) from Earth before re‑entry.
Artemis II marks the first crewed flight of the SLS‑Orion stack since the uncrewed Artemis I launch in 2022 and the first human deep‑space mission beyond low‑Earth orbit since Apollo 17 in 1972. The flight will validate life‑support, radiation‑shelter and abort procedures that underpin NASA’s plan to land astronauts on the lunar surface with Artemis III and to dock separate lunar landers in future missions. Hundreds of thousands of trajectories have been simulated to ensure a safe return, and the two‑hour launch window on April 1 can be recycled within 24 to 48 hours if a scrub occurs, keeping the program on track for continued lunar exploration.
