What do scientists hope to learn from NASA's historic Artemis 2 moon flyby?

Artemis 2 is NASA's first crewed lunar mission since Apollo, with launch targeted for April 1, 2026 at 6:24 p.m. EDT from Launch Complex 39B at Kennedy Space Center. Reid Wiseman, Victor Glover, Christina Koch, and Canadian Space Agency astronaut Jeremy Hansen will ride Orion atop the Space Launch System on a mission designed to certify the full deep-space stack with crew on board.

If the countdown holds, Orion will separate from the upper stage, complete a high Earth orbit systems checkout, and then head out on a free-return trajectory that loops around the moon before splashing down back on Earth. NASA says the mission will carry the crew farther from Earth than Apollo 8 and serve as the proving flight for Orion's life-support, navigation, communications, and crew operations ahead of Artemis III.

The mission also carries real science value. Artemis 2 will gather data on crew health, radiation, and spacecraft habitability while flying a path that turns a launch-day spectacle into a practical certification milestone for the broader lunar campaign.