The days and months roll by, you’re watching a new video from one of the Artemis II crew, and he says something that makes you sit up.
“We’re two-and-a-half months from our first potential launch time,” NASA astronaut Reid Wiseman said in his weekly update from the Johnson Space Center in Texas, where he and fellow NASA astronauts Victor Glover and Christina Koch, along with Canadian Space Agency astronaut Jeremy Hansen, have been in training since when they were announced as part of the crew in 2023.
Yes, that’s right — humans could be heading to the moon again as early as February 2026.
In the crew’s latest weekly update, shared on X on Tuesday, Wiseman said that with the launch possibly just around the corner, “We definitely feel the pressure coming on, the team are getting ready and we’re honing our skills.”
The American astronaut delivered his update from the interior of a mock-up of the Orion spacecraft that will take them on a 10-day voyage around the moon.
Wiseman also showed off the crew’s trusty Nikon D5 DSLR camera that will capture historic images of their journey to Earth’s nearest neighbor.
The crew won’t be landing on the lunar surface, but their mission paves the way for Artemis III, which will put the first humans on the moon since the final Apollo mission in 1972. Artemis III is currently set for 2027, although that date could well slip as NASA and its partners continue with the complex preparations for the much-anticipated mission.
NASA tested the Orion spacecraft in the Artemis I mission, which took place in 2022. The flight surfaced a number of issues with the capsule, which have been fixed for vehicle’s first-ever crewed flight. The SLS rocket that will carry toe astronauts to space has also flown just the once, also in the Artemis I mission.
The initial Artemis missions are laying the foundations for a sustained human presence on the moon, including construction of the Gateway lunar space station and eventual crewed missions to Mars.
Of course, it’s possible that the Artemis II crew won’t get away in February, with some suggesting a spring launch is more likely. Either way, it finally feels like the historic human flight is really about to happen.