NASA Astronauts Ready for 10-Day Lunar Orbit on Artemis II

NASA is preparing the Artemis II mission, which aims to send astronauts around the Moon for the first time in more than 50 years. The agency is getting ready to roll the giant Artemis II rocket to its launch pad on 17 January, with the slow move streamed live for viewers worldwide.

The flight will see astronauts Reid Wiseman, Victor Glover, Christina Koch and Canadian astronaut Jeremy Hansen spend about 10 days in lunar orbit. Artemis II is planned as a test of crew operations and spacecraft systems, laying the groundwork for later Moon landings and, eventually, human flights to Mars.

NASA Artemis II mission rollout and live coverage

According to NASA, Crawler-Transporter 2 will carry the Space Launch System rocket and Orion crew capsule from the Vehicle Assembly Building to Launch Complex 39B in the early hours of 17 January. The 4-mile, or roughly 6.4 to 6.5 kilometre route, begins just after 7 a.m. EST and is expected to take between eight and twelve hours at walking pace, with coverage shown live online.

"We will be at a cruising speed of just under 1 mile per hour," NASA Artemis Launch Director Charlie Blackwell-Thompson stated on Friday. "It'll be a little slower around the turns and up the hill, and that journey will take us about eight to 10 hours to get there."

NASA Artemis II mission objectives and hardware

Artemis II follows the uncrewed Artemis I mission flown in late 2022, which tested the Space Launch System and Orion without astronauts. This second mission will be NASA’s first crewed journey beyond low Earth orbit in more than five decades, sending the four-person team on a loop around the Moon instead of landing on the surface.

During the flight, the crew will check Orion’s life-support, navigation and communication systems in real space conditions. NASA sees these checks as vital before attempting Artemis missions that put astronauts on the lunar surface and support a long-term human base there, which is also viewed as a key step before sending crews onward to Mars.

NASA Artemis II mission timeline and FAQs

The wet dress rehearsal for Artemis II, which is a full launch countdown test with propellant, is scheduled for 2 February. Earlier rehearsals for Artemis I revealed problems such as hydrogen leaks, which required several changes to hardware and procedures, so engineers are watching this new rehearsal closely to confirm that fixes work as planned.

NASA has not confirmed an exact launch date for Artemis II yet but has outlined three possible launch windows. These options stretch across February, March and April, giving teams room to respond if weather or technical checks cause delays after the wet dress rehearsal is complete.

Artemis II is defined by NASA as the agency’s first crewed mission beyond low Earth orbit in more than 50 years. The plan is to send astronauts on an approximately 10-day orbit around the Moon, during which Wiseman, Glover, Koch and Hansen will carefully test Orion’s systems throughout the lunar flyby.

The crew includes Reid Wiseman, Victor Glover, Christina Koch and Jeremy Hansen of the Canadian Space Agency. Their role is to prove that Orion can safely carry people on deep space journeys, which would enable later Artemis missions to attempt Moon landings and build a steady human presence on the lunar surface.

Artemis II is therefore seen inside NASA as both a symbolic return to lunar space and a practical test flight. The rollout on 17 January, the wet dress rehearsal on 2 February and the announced launch windows will be closely watched as the agency moves step by step toward flying astronauts around the Moon again.