Overview
- The mission targets a Wednesday, April 1 launch from Kennedy Space Center, with a two-hour window opening at 6:24 p.m. EDT and backup dates through April 6.
- The four astronauts — Reid Wiseman, Victor Glover, Christina Koch, and Jeremy Hansen — arrived at Kennedy on Friday for final checks after a preflight quarantine in Houston.
- Artemis II will orbit Earth, fire toward the Moon, and perform a distant flyby that could surpass Apollo 13’s distance record around April 6 if the schedule holds.
- NASA will stream tanking, liftoff, and in-flight operations on NASA+ and YouTube with Spanish-language feeds, plus daily status updates from Johnson Space Center.
- Orion is planned to splash down in the Pacific on April 10, when U.S. Navy teams recover the crew, capping a flight that informs later Artemis surface missions with international partners.