The crew of NASA's Artemis II mission are safely back on Earth after a nine-day mission took them on a trip around the moon and back, sending humans deeper into space than ever before.

To come home safely, the crew — NASA's Reid Wiseman, Victor Glover, Christina Koch, and Canadian Space Agency astronaut Jeremy Hansen — and its capsule had to endure near-record-breaking entry speeds and temperatures up to 5,000 degrees Fahrenheit.

The Orion spacecraft spent 13 and a half minutes falling through the atmosphere, hitting a top speed of more than 30 times the speed of sound.

Orion performed as designed. The capsule's heat shield protected the crew, and a series of parachutes helped the capsule gently splash down in the Pacific Ocean off the coast of San Diego.

With that landing, the mission came to a close, clocking more than 700,237 statute miles, said Artemis II entry flight director Rick Henfling.

Four members of the U.S. Navy Dive team pulled the crew from the capsule. Helicopters plucked them from a raft outside their spacecraft — called the porch — and within 24 hours of splashdown, they'll arrive at the Johnson Space Center in Houston.

"We did it. We sent four amazing people to the moon and safely returned them to Earth for the first time in more than 50 years," said NASA's Lori Glaze, who leads the Artemis programs. "To the generation that now knows what we're capable of: Welcome to our moonshot."

The crew's flight path took them around the far side of the moon at around 4,000 miles above the surface.

The crew made a number of geological observations and took thousands of photos to help scientists better understand what the moon is made of – and where it might have come from.

But perhaps the most profound vantage point came from looking back at home.

"Trust me, you are special, in all of this emptiness," said Glover, "This is a whole bunch of nothing, this thing we call The Universe. You have this oasis, this beautiful place that we get to exist together."

The Artemis II mission was a critical test flight for the Orion spacecraft, which will carry future Artemis astronauts, including those that will venture to the lunar surface.

The crew tested key systems of the spacecraft — its life support system, maneuverability, its heat shield, the toilet. What NASA learns from this flight will set future lunar missions up for success.

"Part of our ethos as a crew, and our values from the very beginning were that this is a relay race," said Koch "In fact, we have batons that we bought to symbolize physically, that we plan to hand them to the next crew, and every single thing that we do is with them in mind."

That next crew will come soon. NASA administrator Jared Isaacman accelerated the Artemis program, charging the agency with launching an Artemis mission each year.

Even before the Artemis II crew splashed down, work had begun at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida to prepare for the next mission.

NASA engineering operations manager John Giles oversees the Crawler-Transporter, the massive vehicle that moves the mobile launch pad, and the SLS rocket that launches Orion, from the Vehicle Assembly Building to the launch site. His team is preparing to move the launch platform for Artemis II back into the Vehicle Assembly Building next week to begin putting together the rocket for Artemis III.

"We really haven't had too much time to relax and reflect on Artemis II, other than thinking what a perfect accomplishment it was," said Giles. "Moving right into Artemis III. No rest for the weary. It's moving on."

A key part of the Artemis III SLS rocket — the core stage fuel tank — is heading to Kennedy Space Center later this month. Parts of the solid rocket motors are already there.

Artemis III aims to launch next year. It'll stay in Earth orbit while testing spacecraft that are designed to land humans on the moon. The following mission, Artemis IV, could bring humans to the lunar surface, for the first time since 1972.

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The crew's Orion space capsule is set to enter the atmosphere at 7:53 p.m. ET and splash down less than a quarter-hour later, at 8:07 p.m., off the coast of San Diego.

In that short time, the space capsule will have to slow down from nearly 25,000 miles per hour — or more than 30 times the speed of sound — to a gentle 20 or so mph before dropping into the Pacific Ocean.

As it punches though Earth's atmosphere, the spacecraft will likely experience temperatures around 5,000 degrees Fahrenheit.

And for about six minutes during reentry, as plasma builds up around the vehicle, the capsule's communications will be cut off.

The journey to Earth is like "riding a fireball through the atmosphere," NASA astronaut and Artemis II crew member Victor Glover said before the maneuver.

But, he said, it's also a necessary one.

"We have to get back," Glover said. "There's so much data that you've seen already, but all the good stuff is coming back with us."

Glover, along with fellow NASA astronauts Reid Wiseman and Christina Koch and Canadian Space Agency astronaut Jeremy Hansen, took photos and made observations of the moon as they passed over its surface April 6. The crew will be bringing that data and more back to the team on the ground — data that may offer crucial insights ahead of the Artemis III mission, set to launch as early as next year.

Nell Greenfieldboyce and Central Florida Public Media's Brendan Byrne contributed to this report.

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Central Florida teachers are using the excitement behind Artemis II and astronauts returning to the moon to inspire their students.

This NASA mission, in which a crew of four circled the moon, marked the first time in over 50 years humans have gone back to the moon. Plus, it made history as the first mission to launch a woman, a Canadian astronaut and a person of color to the moon.

Astronauts in the making?

At Freedom Middle School in Orlando, Bill Young is the Project Lead the Way teacher and site coordinator. He’s been using Artemis II in the classroom to encourage his students to consider the possibility of one day working in the space field.

He began his lessons on Artemis by going back to the Apollo missions, where it all started. The class explored some big differences between Apollo and Artemis, including the demographics of the crew.

Young said it's helpful for the students to see astronauts they can look up to and relate to.

“In my school, it's 75% Hispanic,” Young said. “So they can't see themselves being in that role until they can see someone like them doing that.

“I made a big point of pointing out the four astronauts that are up there. Three of them are milestones. You've got your first female astronaut going to the moon, your first person of color going to the moon, and your first non-NASA Canadian astronaut going to the moon.”

Young said he’s trying to bring Artemis II into the classroom with various projects: making their own mini parachutes like those Orion will use on splashdown and streaming the live feed of the mission.

Bringing a little bit of space into the classroom helps his students get excited about the mission even when they’re at home, Young said. "They're like, ‘Did you see it? Did you see it? I watched it on TV,’ or ‘I was standing out in my front yard watching it.’”

He said, “So, that tells me that they're buying into it and that they're getting excited about it. Me in the classroom, I'm just trying to feed that.”

SUBHEAD: The Artemis generation

Over in Seminole County at Goldsboro Elementary, Space Lab instructor Robert Wakelyn also works with his students to help them understand the significance of the Artemis missions.

Again, though launch and splashdown both were happening outside school hours, Wakelyn said he brought the Artemis mission into school through the livestream.

While kids ate lunch, they watched the livestream of the capsule in its flyby around the moon.

“These kids know who those people are,” Wakelyn said. “Now it's not just a name on a paper, they know who these faces are, and you know they've seen their journey. It's just exciting. … They know who these people are, even though they only see them in pictures and the videos that they've shown online.”

For this Artemis mission, Wakelyn said his biggest lesson is to teach his students that this is history in the making and that his students are part of that.

“I have a scrolling marquee as soon as the kids come in,” Wakelyn said. “On that marquee, it says the ‘Artemis generation’ to remind them, it's like you are the Artemis generation. … This is just part of everyday language with them.”

Flying by the moon, witnessing an eclipse, and traveling farther from Earth than any humans have before: The four astronauts of NASA's Artemis II mission have hit many milestones since launching from Kennedy Space Center nearly 10 days ago.

Now, if all goes according to plan Friday, they'll have completed their most important one: making it home.

The crew's Orion space capsule is scheduled to enter the atmosphere at 7:53 p.m. ET, just southeast of Hawaii. About 13 minutes later, it should splash down in the Pacific Ocean off the coast of San Diego.

To make it there, the spacecraft will first have to punch through the Earth's atmosphere at about 25,000 miles per hour and experience temperatures upwards of 5,000 degrees Fahrenheit.

As mission pilot and NASA astronaut Victor Glover put it: It's like "riding a fireball through the atmosphere."

The trip home

The Artemis II crew — Glover, his NASA crewmates Reid Wiseman and Christina Koch, and Canadian Space Agency astronaut Jeremy Hansen — have been preparing for the return home for the past few days, which includes packing up equipment and reorienting the spacecraft for an ideal trajectory that will land them safely in the Pacific at 8:07 p.m. ET.

On return day, the crew will wake up at 11:35 a.m. and begin reconfiguring the Orion capsule for reentry. They will make an additional course correction to fine-tune the return trajectory at 2:53 p.m.

Before entering the atmosphere, the spacecraft will need to ditch its service module — which housed thrusters, solar panels and other spaceflight hardware for the mission. Orion will separate from the service module at 7:33 p.m., which will then fall back to Earth, burning up in the atmosphere.

Orion, if all goes well, will avoid that fate. The spacecraft is set to begin its 13-minute plunge through the atmosphere at 7:53 p.m. During that time, it's expected that the crew will lose communication with Mission Control for about six minutes.

Much of Orion's speed will be lost as it plummets through the atmosphere. As the capsule nears the Earth's surface, a series of parachutes will help it to slow down even further, to a mere 20 miles per hour upon splashdown.

The USS John P. Murtha is stationed near the splashdown zone and will help recover the crew. A team will head out to the floating capsule and install an inflatable raft just below Orion's side hatch. The crew will be examined by a flight surgeon, then helped out of the capsule. From the transport ship, they will hitch a ride back to Johnson Space Center in Houston.

Risk of reentry

There's always risk when returning from space. Glover said that he has been thinking about this portion of the mission since he was selected for it back in 2023, and he's been looking forward to it ever since.

"We have to get back," he said from the Orion capsule Wednesday. "There's so much data that you've seen already, but all the good stuff is coming back with us. There's so many more pictures, so many more stories, and, gosh, I haven't even begun to process what we've been through."

To get back, the capsule must hit the atmosphere at a precise angle.

"Let's not beat around the bush," said Jeff Radigan, Artemis II's lead flight director. "We have to hit that angle correctly. Otherwise, we're not going to have a successful reentry."

All eyes will be on the heat shield — this is the piece of hardware beneath the capsule that protects the crew from the extreme temperatures during reentry. NASA tested it out on Artemis I, the previous, uncrewed mission, and found that the heat shield wasn't performing as designed.

NASA mission planners and the Artemis II team worked on a way to mitigate that risk. Instead of "skipping" through the atmosphere like Artemis I, this mission would hit the atmosphere steeper and faster, limiting the time the spacecraft spends in those fiery, energetic moments of reentry.

"It's 13 minutes of things that have to go right," said Radigan. "I have a whole checklist in my head that we're going through of all the things that have to happen."

Mission success

The Artemis II mission is a key flight test for Orion, and thus far, mission managers have been pleased with the results. The spacecraft has taken humans farther from Earth than they've ever been, breaking a record set by Apollo 13 astronauts in 1970.

The crew tested the manual control of the spacecraft, which will be needed for future missions that will dock with a lunar landing system. The mission tested the spacecraft's life support systems and ability to keep four astronauts comfortable within the confined space.

Artemis II returned humans to the moon for the first time since the Apollo program over 50 years ago. And while some astronauts back then did see the far side of the moon, the Artemis II crew was able to observe it from a vantage point never before seen by humans. Their images and geological notes will help better determine what the moon is made of and where it came from.

While some of the astronauts' observations may help scientists understand the distant past, others will help mission managers better plan for the future. Case in point: The crew tested out the very first toilet to go to the moon, and it quickly ran into issues during flight. Multiple times during the trip, the crew had to use manual urinals instead. The issue, NASA said, was not with the toilet itself, but the system that dumps the urine overboard when it gets full.

The Orion capsule will return to NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Florida after the mission, where engineers will examine the spacecraft after its flight, including a closer look at the spacecraft's plumbing. The team will be picking apart the spacecraft to see how it performed — and make any necessary changes ahead of the next mission, Artemis III, set to launch next year.

Copyright 2026 NPR

Artemis II images to help UCF researchers

During the Artemis II lunar flyby on Monday, the astronauts onboard took thousands of photos and made geological observations of around 35 targets on the far side of the moon. The astronauts were the first to see the far side of the moon from that perspective, and the data they collected will help planetary scientists here on Earth.

SEE PHOTOS: NASA releases first images from moon flyby

At the University of Central Florida, planetary scientist Addie Dove is preparing to send an instrument to the lunar surface as early as 2028. Lunar-VISE aims to understand Gruithuisen Domes – a puzzling geological structure on the moon and a structure that the mission observed. Scientists have no idea how it was formed. Lunar-VISE could unlock that mystery.

Dove and her team plan to use images from the Artemis II flyby to maximize the data they can collect.

“Thinking about some of the viewing angles and some of the way they described what they were able to see at different times on the surface, that's really interesting to think about when we're thinking about our operations,” Dove said. “We're primarily a lander and a rover, but we do plan to take some observations as we're orbiting the moon before we land, and then we're taking images as we descend.”

Dove said the trajectory the mission has taken will be very impactful on the Commercial Lunar Payload Services, or CLPS. The insights gathered from the journey will facilitate an easier journey for American companies’ lunar science payloads.

“The way they did the observations, and thinking about how they flew over, and some of the trajectories that we might be on during our initial flybys on our mission, and just sort of the impetus that's coming out of [the Artemis II] mission, I do think will be really impactful going forward,” Dove said.

A lunar science team at the Johnson Space Center in Houston spoke in real time with the Artemis II astronauts as they made their observations. This combination of science and engineering is new for lunar exploration. Paul Byrne, a planetary scientist at Washington University in St. Louis, who is not affiliated with Lunar-VISE, said that collaboration is a positive thing to see.

“It’s the real-time discovery they're doing which helps us be there with them [and is] hugely helped by the folks in the science back room at Mission Control,” Byrne said. “We have folks on console in Mission Control who are scientists as well. That marrying of the kind of exploration, engineering side of things, and the science side of things is not something we saw to the same extent in Apollo, but it undergirds much of what's happening in Artemis.”

The images from the flyby are captivating the public as NASA began releasing them Tuesday, but the picture would be incomplete without the Artemis II crew’s visual survey of the moon. And they're also inspiring brand new questions for up-and-coming planetary scientists.

“When we train students, we tell them, ‘you can take all the photos you want’, but a really important part of any kind of field-based exercise of any kind is to also narrate what you see,” Byrne said. “We would usually have students write stuff in their journals or notebooks and sketch what they see.

He said the camera gives an objective view, but “the eye is such an amazingly sensitive instrument, much more than any camera we have.”
The Artemis II crew officially began their trip home at the conclusion of Monday’s flyby. Their capsule will punch through Earth’s atmosphere Friday evening before splashing down in the Pacific Ocean off the coast of California, signaling the end of the nearly 10-day mission that took the crew farther into space than any other humans.

Trump administration proposes to cut NASA’s budget again

The Trump administration proposed around a 25% cut in NASA’s annual budget for next fiscal year -- echoing its proposal from last year.

The proposal must obtain the approval of Congress to be set into motion. The cuts proposed by the Trump administration for the 2026 fiscal year received bipartisan pushback. Ultimately, NASA only received minor cuts to its annual budget.

The newest proposal aims to cut $3.4 billion for NASA science, around 47% – one of the largest in the agency’s history, second only to last year’s proposal, according to an analysis by space advocacy group The Planetary Society. It also proposed a reduction in civil servants from the current 14,000, down to 11,000 employees.

“By cutting unnecessary and overpriced activities, the Budget strengthens the National Aeronautics and Space Administration’s (NASA) focus and ensures that every dollar spent propels America’s dominance in the final frontier,” the proposal stated.

Casey Drier, Chief of Policy at The Planetary Society, called the cuts draconian.

“These are not efficient. You don't get efficiency by slaughtering something and breaking it in two,” Drier said. “It directs NASA to plan for these awful cuts, and so it can't plan for the future. It is distracted from executing the program of record, and it just burns all this time. It's inefficient, almost by design, ironically, given the stated goals of this administration. It is a is a wasteful exercise, but a serious one.”
Drier called the proposal “copy-and-paste” from the 2026 fiscal year budget proposal. The proposal includes missions cancelled in last year’s budget, including the Mars Sample Return.

The NASA budget slightly increased funding for the Artemis missions. The budget was proposed just two days after the launch of Artemis II, which sent humans back to the moon for the first time in over 50 years. Drier worried about potential bitterness directed at the mission.

“If you build Artemis on the backs of all these other projects that are popular among various other constituencies, Artemis itself will have a target. It'll be seen fairly or not as being the cause of the destruction of all these other things.” Drier said. “For the long-term success of Artemis, you want a healthy rest of NASA to not engender this kind of political divide and partisanship getting injected into this.”

The budget proposal contradicts many of the recent statements from the agency. NASA Administrator Jared Isaacman said he would increase the number of civil servants, contrary to the budget cuts.

The inconsistencies don’t stop there, Drier said.

“There's a lot of questions raised by this budget, because a lot of what we heard at the NASA ignition event a few weeks ago is just fundamentally incompatible, if not outright contravened by what this proposal says,” Drier said. “Another example of that is commercial low Earth orbit space stations. NASA a couple weeks ago [...] we want to build attachments to the ISS and keep running it longer. This budget says, ‘Nope, we're building two free flying commercial stations.’ We're deorbiting ISS in 2030. These are fundamentally incompatible statements. One is an official statement of policy. The other one is what NASA administrators said two weeks ago. So, which one is true?”

During the Artemis II lunar flyby on Monday, the astronauts onboard took thousands of photos and made geological observations of around 35 targets on the far side of the moon. The astronauts were the first to see the far side of the moon from that perspective, and the data they collected will help planetary scientists here on Earth.

At the University of Central Florida, planetary scientist Addie Dove is preparing to send an instrument to the lunar surface as early as 2028. Lunar-VISE aims to understand Gruithuisen Domes – a puzzling geological structure on the moon and a structure that the mission observed. Scientists have no idea how it was formed. Lunar-VISE could unlock that mystery.

Dove and her team plan to use images from the Artemis II flyby to maximize the data they can collect.

“Thinking about some of the viewing angles and some of the way they described what they were able to see at different times on the surface, that's really interesting to think about when we're thinking about our operations,” Dove said. “We're primarily a lander and a rover, but we do plan to take some observations as we're orbiting the moon before we land, and then we're taking images as we descend.”

Dove said the trajectory the mission has taken will be very impactful on the Commercial Lunar Payload Services, or CLPS. The insights gathered from the journey will facilitate an easier journey for American companies’ lunar science payloads.

“The way they did the observations, and thinking about how they flew over, and some of the trajectories that we might be on during our initial flybys on our mission, and just sort of the impetus that's coming out of [the Artemis II] mission, I do think will be really impactful going forward,” Dove said.

A lunar science team at the Johnson Space Center in Houston spoke in real time with the Artemis II astronauts as they made their observations. This combination of science and engineering is new for lunar exploration. Paul Byrne, a planetary scientist at Washington University in St. Louis, who is not affiliated with Lunar-VISE, said that collaboration is a positive thing to see.“It’s the real-time discovery they're doing which helps us be there with them [and is] hugely helped by the folks in the science back room at Mission Control,” Byrne said. “We have folks on console in Mission Control who are scientists as well. That marrying of the kind of exploration, engineering side of things, and the science side of things is not something we saw to the same extent in Apollo, but it undergirds much of what's happening in Artemis.”

The images from the flyby are captivating the public as NASA began releasing them Tuesday, but the picture would be incomplete without the Artemis II crew’s visual survey of the moon. And they're also inspiring brand new questions for up-and-coming planetary scientists.

“When we train students, we tell them, ‘you can take all the photos you want’, but a really important part of any kind of field-based exercise of any kind is to also narrate what you see,” Byrne said. “We would usually have students write stuff in their journals or notebooks and sketch what they see.

He said the camera gives an objective view, but “the eye is such an amazingly sensitive instrument, much more than any camera we have.”

The Artemis II crew officially began their trip home at the conclusion of Monday’s flyby. Their capsule will punch through Earth’s atmosphere Friday evening before splashing down in the Pacific Ocean off the coast of California, signalling the end of the nearly 10-day mission that took the crew farther into space than any other humans.

The four-astronaut crew of NASA's Artemis II mission is now on its way back to Earth after a record-breaking trip around the moon, traveling farther than any other humans have before.

As the Orion capsule whipped around the back side of the moon Monday, Earth was out of sight — and the crew was unable to communicate to Mission Control for about 40 minutes due to the moon blocking a connection to the Deep Space Network.

"And to all of you down there on Earth and around Earth, we love you, from the Moon," radioed mission specialist Christina Koch ahead of the radio blackout. "We will see you on the other side."

During the blackout, according to NASA, the capsule reached its closest approach to the moon at about 4,067 miles above the lunar surface. Just minutes later, the crew reached the mission's maximum distance from Earth at 252,756 miles, beating the previous record set by the Apollo 13 mission in 1970 by 4,111 more miles.

"We will explore, we will build, we will build ships. We will visit again," said Koch as the spacecraft reestablished communication, beginning its journey back to Earth.

"We will construct science outposts. We will drive rovers. We will do radio astronomy. We will found companies. We will bolster industry. We will inspire, but ultimately, we will always choose Earth. We will always choose each other," she said.

Orion and its crew now begin the nearly quarter-million-mile journey back to Earth with new knowledge of the lunar surface and key test flight data from the Orion spacecraft to aid future missions that will take humans to the surface of the moon as early as 2028.

New lunar data

During the mission's loop around the moon, the crew took geological observations of around 35 places of interest on the lunar surface using their own eyes and snapping thousands of photos of the surface.

Orion's high altitude above the far side of the moon gave the crew a never-before-seen view. Working in teams of two, the astronauts observed these features and spoke to scientists in real time back at Mission Control at the Johnson Space Center in Houston about what they were seeing — like changes in color on the lunar surface.

These color changes can help scientists understand the composition of minerals on the surface, according to NASA, because while there is plenty of satellite imagery of the moon, the human eye is better at spotting the changes of color.

"The plateau is hard for me to see from this window, but that had green issues to me and was very unique," said mission specialist Jeremy Hansen in a conversation with NASA's lunar scientists. "I didn't see anything like that anywhere else on this side of the moon. And then I see a lot of these, what I would call brownish hue areas."

Their observations will help scientists better understand the moon's composition and help plan for future robotic landings on the far side.

The flight trajectory took the spacecraft through a solar eclipse — when a mostly darkened moon transited in front of the sun. The roughly hourlong phenomenon gave the crew the chance to study the solar corona as it peeked around the edge of the moon.

"This continues to be unreal," said mission pilot Victor Glover, relaying his observations to Mission Control. "It is quite an impressive sight."

The astronauts will share more of their science data and observations with science officials during an in-flight meeting Tuesday.

The crew also took the flyby opportunity to dedicate an unnamed crater to commander Reid Wiseman's late wife, who died from cancer in 2020.

"We lost a loved one, her name was Carroll. It's a bright spot on the moon. And we would like to call that Carroll," said Hansen.

Returning home

Artemis II is a test flight of the Orion spacecraft, and the crew will continue to perform flight tests on the vehicle as it makes the trip home. That includes the deployment of a radiation shield and once again testing the maneuverability of the spacecraft during manual flight.

But one of the most critical tests will come during reentry Friday, as the Orion space capsule punches through Earth's atmosphere at 25,000 miles per hour, enduring temperatures of up to 5,000 degrees Fahrenheit.

The crew and the spacecraft will be protected by a heat shield beneath their capsule that was designed to protect the astronauts for this dynamic event. A series of parachutes will slow Orion down to just under 20 miles per hour as it gently splashes down in the Pacific Ocean off the coast of San Diego. Airbags will deploy to make sure the crew is right side up.

Personnel from NASA and the U.S. Department of Defense will assist the crew out of the capsule and take them to a recovery ship, ending the nearly 10-day mission to the moon and back.

Copyright 2026 NPR

It marks a critical milestone of the agency's Orion space capsule, sending humans on a mission to the moon for the first time in more than 50 years. As the capsule loops around the moon, the astronauts will reach farther into space than humans have ever ventured.

The Orion spacecraft is now in the lunar sphere of influence, meaning the moon's gravity has more pull on the vehicle than the Earth. At 1:46 p.m. ET, the crew will surpass the record for the farthest distance traveled from Earth by humans, which was set by the Apollo 13 mission at 248,655 statute miles from Earth. At 2:45 p.m., the crew will begin making observations of the surface of the moon during the flyby.

As the vehicle circles the far side of the moon, communication back to Earth is expected to be blocked for about 40 minutes. At 7:02 p.m., the crew is expected to have reached the mission's maximum distance from Earth at 252,760 statute miles.

The flyby is scheduled to conclude at 9:20 p.m., and then the crew will be on its way home, with a planned splashdown in the Pacific Ocean off San Diego, Calif., on Friday at 8:07 p.m.

During the Artemis II flyby, the crew will pass over two previous human lunar landing sites — Apollo 12 and 14.

Lunar science observations

During the lunar flyby, the closest Orion will come to the surface of the moon is 4,070 miles. From that distance, the crew will have a unique vantage point of the moon as a full disc — and the ability to take observations never before seen by human eyes.

NASA scientists have identified about 35 geological features for the crew to observe. Working in pairs, they will take photos of the sites and describe them in real time to scientists at Mission Control at the Johnson Space Center in Houston.

"They're going to be absolutely buzzing," said Artemis II lunar science lead Kelsey Young on Sunday. The team will monitor the observations and provide guidance to the crew.

"The science team will get to work right away, kind of synthesizing those [observations], and then we'll actually downlink the rest of the descriptions overnight, in advance of a crew conference we'll have the following morning to continue the science discussion."

Artemis II has 10 science objectives for the flyby. One is to observe color variations on the lunar surface. Changes in color can indicate the composition of the minerals on the surface. These changes are hard to detect with satellite images.

"This is something that human eyes are just incredibly good at teasing out nuances about," said Young.

Satellites like the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter, which launched in 2009, have given scientists a better understanding of the lunar surface. The Artemis II crew's observations will build on that knowledge.

"We understand, you know, what it's made out of. We understand the topography, but we don't know what the crew are going to see in these specific illumination conditions from a scientific perspective," said Young. "And that's exciting."

The observations will help future landing missions. One target site is a potential future landing area for an uncrewed payload mission. The crew will also get a small glimpse of the lunar south pole — where humans might land as early as 2028.

The mission so far

Artemis II is more than halfway through its slingshot mission around the moon and back. This is a test flight of the Orion space capsule, carrying a human crew for the first time.

"Our mission continues to go incredibly well," said Lori Glaze, who leads NASA's Artemis program.

Tests include manual control of the Orion spacecraft. Mission pilot Victor Glover practiced the maneuverability of the capsule for future rendezvous with lunar landing vehicles.

The crew tested the spacecraft's life support systems, like the carbon dioxide scrubbers, and donned their spacesuits midflight — which future astronauts might have to do in an emergency.

The Artemis II mission is also testing the first deep-space toilet. NASA's Universal Waste Management System is stowed in the floor of Orion and allows the crew to use the bathroom in private. So far, the hardware has had a few hiccups (not having enough water in the bowl and, at a different point, not being able to dump the waste overboard due to a frozen line), but those seem to be resolved.

"We're continuing to proceed with the mission and the use of the toilet nominally," said Artemis II flight director Rick Henfling, meaning the crew is allowed to use the onboard lavatory.
Copyright 2026 NPR

A crew of four -- and a large selection of menu items -- successfully launched from the Kennedy Space Center on Wednesday. NASA’s Space Launch Systems Rocket and Orion capsule blasted off at 6:35 p.m..

During their nearly 10-day journey, NASA supplied the crewmates with a variety of foods to choose from. The menu has 189 items, including macaroni and cheese, and barbecued beef brisket.

Compared to the Apollo missions, this menu reflects advancements in food and space technology. According to NASA, while the International Space Station relies on fresh food and resupply missions, “Artemis II uses a fixed, pre-selected menu designed for a self-contained space vehicle with no resupply.”

NASA’s Norm Knight, the director of the Flight Operations Directorate, said the astronauts had snacks stashed in their spacesuits during launch but they probably didn’t feel like eating.

“They're going to snack,” Knight said. “They probably have some pre-positioned meals. I know they did in their flight suits -- some of the snacks that they can use if they need. But I will also tell you that on flight day one and flight day two, you might not feel like eating a lot and that's just part of it. Your body is acclimating to zero-g. Your physiology is transitioning from a 1-g environment to zero-g. And it takes a little bit of adapting.”

Before the launch, each crewmember was able to sample and help craft their own menu preferences. Canadian astronaut Jeremy Hansen also has some special food items, like maple cream cookies and maple syrup.

Aside from preferences, NASA prepares and tracks all of the food for the health of this crew and for future Artemis crews.

“We want to make sure that they're healthy, and we also want to make sure we know what they're doing, what they're eating, so we can also track that and make sure that they don't need any supplements or anything additional,” Knight said.

All of the foods on the mission have to be easy to prepare and minimize any crumbs or spillage. NASA said the crew can use Orion’s “potable water dispenser to rehydrate foods and beverages and a compact, briefcase-style food warmer to heat meals as needed.”

NASA’s massive SLS rocket roared to life at 6:35 p.m. ET at the Kennedy Space Center, its twin solid rocket boosters and four engines cracking the air and lifting the Orion space capsule and its crew into space under a fiery orange trail.

Eight minutes after liftoff, they were officially in space.

NASA’s Reid Wiseman, Victor Glover, and Christina Koch, along with Canadian Space Agency Astronaut Jeremy Hansen will be the first humans to embark on a lunar mission since 1972.

Florida’s Space Coast was packed with spectators eager to view the historic mission. Officials estimate more than 400,000 people visited the Space Coast. The Kennedy Space Center Visitor Complex said it had sold out tickets to the launch viewing, with thousands of spectators visiting on Wednesday.

The mission is a key testflight in NASA’s ambitious new plans for lunar exploration. Artemis II will test key parts of the Orion spacecraft, like its life support system and heat shields. Shortly after launch, the crew will manually fly the spacecraft around its service module, testing the maneuverability of the vehicle in space and its ability to dock with future lunar landers.

While this mission will not land on the moon – it’s flying on a lunar flyby trajectory – it will take humans farther beyond the moon than ever before. The crew will pass the far side of the moon at roughly 5,000 miles from the lunar surface – a view of the moon never before seen by human eyes. They’ll take observations of the lunar surface, which could help NASA plan landing sites for future lunar missions.

At the end of the flight, the crew will smash through the atmosphere at nearly 25,000 miles per hour, protected by a heat shield on their spacecraft, as they eventually slow down and splash down in the Pacific Ocean.

The Artemis II testflight is critical for NASA’s future plans to eventually land humans on the lunar surface. The following mission, Artemis III will test docking with a lunar landing vehicle. Missions moving forward will land on the surface.

Congressman Mike Haridopolis, R-Indian Harbour Beach, who chairs the space and aeronautics subcommittee, said a lot is riding on this mission, including the future of NASA’s lunar ambitions and the Space Coast economy.

“This is a big test for the USA, and I think that if we can find success, I highly anticipate we're going to see this space industry grow more,” he said. “And it's not just a national exploration. It is a growing part of our economy.”

NASA’s Artemis II moon mission could launch on a flyby mission around the moon from Florida’s Kennedy Space Center this week.

It’s the first crewed mission to visit the moon since the final lunar Apollo mission in 1972. And this crew is taking with them some of the most advanced observational instruments – their eyes.

We’ll speak with Artemis II mission scientist Barbara Cohen about how the crew trains to make scientific observations with their eyes and how that will help future mission land on the moon.

Plus, here on Earth, NASA is helping giant Galapagos tortoises go back home.

The reptiles are being introduced back to one of the islands in the Galapagos, all thanks to NASA data.

The Brevard County Sheriff's Office anticipates 400,000 visitors for NASA’s Artemis II launch attempt at the Kennedy Space Center Wednesday as four astronauts prepare to circle the moon.

It's a journey humans haven't made in more than 50 years.

The launch team at KSC has an initial two-hour window for liftoff beginning at 6:24 p.m. Wednesday.

Watch Live Stream

Peter Cranis, executive director of the Space Coast Office of Tourism, says the level of excitement is high around NASA's Artemis II launch. It harkens back to the Apollo and Shuttle missions.

"I don't think there's going to be a bad spot to view it, but I think what you're going to see with a 300-plus foot rocket is it's pretty massive," Cranis said. "And the sound and the feeling, you know, you're gonna, you're gonna hear the rumble, you're gonna feel the rumble.

“And you know, that's not always typical with some of the launches. … Usually you'll hear something, but it's, you know, this is really going to rattle the windows and shake the floor.”

Last year, the Space Coast had a record 109 rocket launches.

"We're launching a couple of times a week, easily, sometimes more," Cranis said. "So if you're coming here on vacation, it's very typical that you might see a launch, but this ... one of those special moments in time where, you know, not only does it have a historical aspect to it, but these are big, big, big rockets."

He said it's a "bucket list item" for some people.

The tourism office advises visitors to arrive a few hours early -- popular viewing locations fill up quickly -- and to "bring snacks, water, sunscreen, lawn chairs, and any other desired amenities."

The office recommends the Space Coast Launches App for real-time updates, which can include delays and scrubbed launches. The tourism office also provides a map of viewing locations at visitspacecoast.com.

And it suggests this Space Coast Countdown Playlist:

Space Coast Countdown Playlist:

• Frank Sinatra – Fly Me to the Moon
• Elton John – Rocket Man
• David Bowie – Space Oddity
• Peter Schilling - Major Tom (Coming Home)
• Avenged Sevenfold – Higher
• Train – Drops of Jupiter
• Will.i.am – Reach for the Stars
• B-52s - There’s a Moon in the Sky (Called the Moon)
• The Byrds - Armstrong, Aldrin and Collins
• Europe – The Final Countdown

Heavy traffic expected

Traffic will be heavy, especially after the launch, and law enforcement agencies urge drivers to have patience and look out for pedestrians.

The Titusville Police Department and the Sheriff's Office have posted maps on social media with routes for leaving the area.

The Sheriff's Office says that, without question, "our afternoon traffic will be extremely active as we anticipate up to 400,000 visitors coming to Brevard County to watch this amazing piece of history!"

The agency urges locals to stay off the roads if they can and, if they must travel, to give themselves extra time.

"Watch for and yield to pedestrians/bicyclists crossing the roadways as there will be a lot of people out and about," the post says.

Post-launch exit plans

Here's BCSO's post-launch traffic plan:

• 𝐒𝐑 𝟓𝟐𝟖: Eastbound motorists on SR 528 will proceed eastbound to A1A south. Use SR 520 westbound as an alternate to SR 528. Westbound motorists on SR 528 will continue west on SR 528.
• 𝐔𝐒𝟏/𝐖𝐚𝐬𝐡𝐢𝐧𝐠𝐭𝐨𝐧 𝐒𝐭 (𝐓𝐢𝐭𝐮𝐬𝐯𝐢𝐥𝐥𝐞): All motorists north of Harrison St will proceed northbound on US-1. All vehicles south of Harrison, proceed southbound on US-1.
• 𝐀𝟏𝐀 (𝐂𝐨𝐜𝐨𝐚 𝐁𝐞𝐚𝐜𝐡): NO LEFT TURN from northbound A1A to SR 520 westbound. 𝐍𝐎 𝐔-𝐓𝐔𝐑𝐍𝐒 𝐎𝐍 𝐒𝐑 𝟓𝟐𝟖 𝐨𝐫 𝐆𝐄𝐎𝐑𝐆𝐄 𝐊𝐈𝐍𝐆 𝐁𝐋𝐕𝐃. Southbound should proceed to SR 404 (Pineda Causeway) to US 1 or I-95.
  

Here's Titusville PD's plan:

To safely move large volumes of traffic out of the area, predetermined routes will be in place.

• North of Harrison Street: Travel north to Garden Street, then west to I-95.
• Sand Point Park / A. Max Brewer Bridge Area: Travel to SR-46, then west to I-95.
• South of Harrison Street: Travel to Cheney Highway (SR-50) or SR-405, then west.
• Depending on traffic conditions, westbound traffic on Washington Avenue at Cheney Highway and SR-405 may be restricted, directing vehicles south toward Cocoa via SR-528 west.
• The A. Max Brewer Bridge may close to vehicle traffic if pedestrian volume becomes too high.