Artemis II lunar flyby
In April 2026 four astronauts flew around the Moon and back, the first crewed trip beyond low Earth orbit since 1972.
Open in the interactive tree →Orion launched on NASA's SLS rocket carrying Reid Wiseman, Victor Glover, Christina Koch and Canada's Jeremy Hansen, the first non-American to leave Earth orbit for the Moon. The flight tested Orion's life support and heat-shield re-entry for later landings.
As of October 2026
Launch was on 1 April 2026 (22:35 UTC) and splashdown off San Diego on 10 April (17:07 PDT), after just over nine days. The crew reached 406,771 km from Earth, a human distance record beating Apollo 13's 400,171 km, and passed about 6,545 km above the lunar surface on 6 April. NASA now plans Artemis III for late 2027 as an Earth-orbit docking test with commercial landers, and the first crewed landing with Artemis IV in 2028.
Open steps
- Artemis III crewed lunar landing Low AI leverageDevelop Lunar Starship or HLS variant for crewed South Pole landing, including ascent and Orion rendezvous.
- Sustained crewed lunar presence Low AI leverageEstablish infrastructure for crew rotations at South Pole: habitat, ISRU (water extraction), power and communication.
Where AI could help
Low AI leverage. Artemis III and IV depend on landers, launches and budgets; AI helps operations, crew support and simulation but does not drive the schedule.
- Support crews with onboard medical decision tools when ground contact is limited
- Plan and replan mission timelines and ground operations
- Run digital-twin simulations of docking and landing sequences before flight
- Search Artemis II flight data for anomalies to fix before the next mission
Shown so far
- In August 2025, Google and NASA reported early tests of CMO-DA, an AI assistant for diagnosing and treating crew illness, and said early results showed promise (according to Google). source
Prerequisites
- Moon landing1969
- Space stations1971