NASA Answers Your Most Pressing Artemis II Questions

10 min read NASA Answers Your Most Pressing Artemis II Questions Cheryl Warner News Chief Apr 04, 2026 Article NASA astronaut Christina Koch, Artemis II mission specialist, peers out of one of the Orion spacecraft’s main cabin windows on Saturday, April 4, 2026, looking back at Earth, as the crew travel toward the Moon. NASA The first crewed test flight under NASA’s Artemis program is underway. Four Artemis II astronauts are flying aboard NASA’s Orion spacecraft around the Moon and back, as they test how the spacecraft’s systems operate in a deep space environment. NASA astronauts Reid Wiseman, Victor Glover, and Christina Koch, and CSA (Canadian Space Agency) astronaut Jeremy Hansen lifted off at 6:35 p.m. EDT on April 1 from launch pad 39B at the agency’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida. Real-time coverage continues throughout the mission on NASA’s YouTube channel. The agency also provides a separate live stream of views from the Orion spacecraft as bandwidth allows, as well as inside the capsule. In addition NASA is providing the latest mission imagery online. Daily mission status briefings are held live from the agency’s Johnson Space Center in Houston through splashdown, except for Monday, April 6, due to lunar flyby activities. A list of activities is regularly updated online. The crew are participating in live conversations throughout the mission, which were scheduled prior to their departure from Earth. NASA will provide the exact times of each of these downlink events, as well as the latest mission coverage, on the Artemis blog . To track Orion in space, visit: nasa.gov/trackartemis Frequently Asked Questions (all times Eastern): How long is the Artemis II mission? NASA’s Artemis II mission is an approximately 10-day journey around the Moon including launch, a lunar flyby, and a safe splashdown off the coast of San Diego. How far will Artemis II travel? Crew is expected to travel a total of 695,081 miles from launch to splashdown. The spacecraft will pass within 4,066 miles of the lunar surface during its closest approach and will reach a maximum distance of 252,757 miles from Earth, about 4,102 miles farther than Apollo 13. When and where will the Artemis II crew and Orion spacecraft splashdown? The location and time of our Artemis II splashdown will continue to shift as mission milestones are reached. In the days leading up to splashdown, updates will be available on NASA’s website and in our daily news conferences. Mission media events are available on the agency’s website . NASA’s Artemis II mission is scheduled to splash down off the coast of San Diego at approximately 8:07 p.m. EDT (5:07 p.m. PDT) on Friday, April 10. Following splashdown, recovery teams will retrieve the crew using helicopters and deliver them to the USS John P. Murtha. Once aboard, the astronauts will undergo post-mission medical evaluations in the ship’s medical bay before traveling back to shore to meet with an aircraft bound for NASA’s Johnson Space Center in