2026 set to be the year NASA astronauts fly around the moon again

NASA’s plans to launch astronauts to the moon in early 2026. The Artemis II mission is expected to carry a crew around the moon — though not to the lunar surface.

If all goes according to NASA’s plans, 2026 will finally be the year that astronauts once again launch to the moon.

In a matter of months, four astronauts are poised to fly around the moon on a roughly 10-day mission — the closest humans will have gotten in more than half a century.

The flight, known as Artemis II, could lift off as early as February and would be a long-awaited jump start to America’s lagging return-to-the-moon program. The mission will serve as a crucial test of NASA’s next-generation Space Launch System rocket and Orion spacecraft, which have been in development for more than a decade and faced years of setbacks and severe budget overruns. The system has never carried a crew before.

Returning to the moon has been a priority for President Donald Trump since his first term, and the current administration has placed renewed emphasis on dominating the intensifying space race between the U.S. and China. Chinese officials have pledged to land their own astronauts on the lunar surface by 2030.

Beyond the geopolitical implications, the Artemis II mission is designed to usher in a new era of space exploration, with the goal of eventually establishing bases for long-duration stays on the moon before astronauts someday venture on to Mars.