Artemis II launch date
Artemis II will send four astronauts around the Moon and back — the first crewed flight beyond low Earth orbit since Apollo 17 in 1972. The target date has moved several times; below is what the live feed currently carries.
Live dataUpdated on October 7, 2026
What the launch feed says now
If nothing appears here, the feed has no Artemis entry with a date at the moment. Treat any date you see as a target, not a commitment: NASA has revised it more than once as work on the Orion heat shield and life support progressed.
No launch is scheduled for today in the feed.
Feed read at Oct 16, 2026, 12:28 AM · All times in UTC.
Source: The Space Devs — Launch Library 2 (API de lançamentos)
The mission
- Vehicle
- Space Launch System, Block 1
- Spacecraft
- Orion
- Crew
- four astronauts, three from NASA and one from the Canadian Space Agency
- Profile
- free-return trajectory around the Moon, no landing
- Duration
- about 10 days
- Launch site
- Kennedy Space Center, Launch Complex 39B
- Precedent
- first crew beyond low Earth orbit since Apollo 17, December 1972
Source: NASA — Programa Artemis
What it tests, and what comes after
Artemis I flew the same hardware uncrewed in 2022 and came back with more heat shield erosion than expected, which is the main reason the schedule moved: the analysis and the fix had to come before putting people aboard. Artemis II adds everything Artemis I could not test — life support, crew displays, manual piloting, and the communications needed to run a crew at lunar distance.
It is a loop, not a landing. The first Artemis landing is planned for a later mission, and it depends on a crewed lander and on orbital refuelling, neither of which has yet flown. Anyone promising you a firm date for boots on the Moon is guessing.
Source: NASA — Programa Artemis
How to read this page
How to read the numbers here
Every value on "Artemis II launch date" comes from the source named beside its section, never from an estimate of our own with no origin.
Where the data comes from
Each section of "Artemis II launch date" names its official source; the verification date sits at the top of the page.
Check the primary source
The live numbers on this page change; the source named here is where to compare the value at the moment you’re reading it.
More about “Artemis II launch date”
Why filter by operator, not by "NASA mission"
"Artemis II launch date" filters by launch vehicle, not by payload origin, because that’s how the data source organises things: by rocket operator. A NASA science probe launched on a commercial rocket shows up under the commercial operator’s list, not this one.
Words on this page
Launch window
The span of time in which a rocket can lift off and still reach its planned orbit or destination. For a trip to another planet that window can last only a few weeks and only returns at the next favourable alignment, so missing it costs months or years of waiting.
Astronomical unit
The solar system’s reference distance, fixed at exactly 149,597,870,700 metres since 2012, close to the average Earth–Sun distance. It saves writing every planet’s orbit in kilometres with ten digits.
Standard definition by IAU — International Astronomical Union · Astronomical unit
Exoplanet
A planet orbiting a star other than the Sun. Most were found indirectly, by the star’s faint dimming as the planet crosses in front of it (transit) or by the gravitational wobble it causes in the star (radial velocity), not by direct image.
Standard definition by NASA Exoplanet Archive · Exoplanet
Standard uncertainty
The margin attached to a measured value, usually written in parentheses on the last digits. A constant that is "exact by definition" has zero standard uncertainty; a measured one, like the gravitational constant G, always carries some.
Standard definition by BIPM — Bureau International des Poids et Mesures (SI) · Standard uncertainty
Mole
The SI counting unit for atoms, molecules or other entities: one mole is exactly 6.02214076 × 10²³ of them, by the definition fixed in 2019. It is what ties a mass in grams to a number of particles.
Standard definition by BIPM — Bureau International des Poids et Mesures (SI) · Mole