NASA’s Artemis II mission carried four crew members on its 2026 lunar flyby.
The crew consisted of NASA astronauts Reid Wiseman, Victor Glover, and Christina Koch, together with Canadian Space Agency astronaut Jeremy Hansen. Their mission was the first crewed flight of NASA’s Artemis program and the first crewed lunar mission since Apollo 17 in 1972.
Artemis II launched on April 1, 2026, aboard NASA’s Space Launch System from Kennedy Space Center in Florida. The Orion spacecraft flew around the Moon before returning to Earth on April 11.
The mission was not a lunar landing. Its purpose was to test Orion’s systems, crew operations, and procedures for later Artemis missions. This distinction matters because Artemis II was a crewed flyby, while future missions are intended to return astronauts to the lunar surface.