Long ago, to those who don’t know, in 1969, Apollo 11 was the first time we sent people to the moon with Neil Armstrong, Edwin “Buzz” Aldrin, and Michael Collins. It’s been about 50 years since that event, and now we’re going back to the moon. On April 1, 2026, we sent a team to the moon on the Artemis 2 mission. For this, I will give you some information about Artemis 2, what they did, why we did it, and other important facts.

If you can’t tell by the two, there is another Artemis mission that happened before. Artemis 1 in 2022, which basically tested the rocket that they sent to the moon with, called the Space Launch System, and the spacecraft called Orion, and basically did the Artemis 2 flight, but with no crew. Now there are plans for future Artemis missions after Artemis 2, but those missions are in a few more years, so we have to wait.

The astronauts sent on this mission were Reid Wiseman, Victor Glover, Christina Koch, and Jeremy Hansen from the Canadian Space Agency. To be clear, they did not land on the moon, but orbited around the moon. They went back to the Moon to make scientific discoveries and plan to go to Mars. They used the rocket from Artemis 1, the Space Launch System (SLS), to head into space. They also used the spacecraft from Artemis 1, named Orion, which is going to be attached to the top of the SLS. 

The mission ended on April 10th, but started on April 1st, where they took photos of the moon, discoveries they found, the Earth, and many more. They landed safely in the Pacific Ocean, in California. After they finish Artemis 2, they will probably start the next Artemis project, which is Artemis 3, which will test docking features on the Orion spacecraft. So as time passes, we will have to wait until next year for it to happen.

Liftoff! NASA Launches Astronauts on Historic Artemis Moon Mission