What did Artemis II do, and when will people land on the Moon again?

As of October 2026, NASA's plan is a landing in 2028, and Artemis II was the dress rehearsal that flew first. Artemis II, flown April 1 to 11, 2026, was a crewed flyby of the Moon, the first crewed flight beyond low Earth orbit since Apollo 17 in 1972. The Artemis program aims to return humans to the Moon for the first time since Apollo and to build a permanent lunar base.

Four astronauts flew on Artemis II: Victor Glover, Christina Koch, Canadian Space Agency astronaut Jeremy Hansen and Reid Wiseman, the oldest person to travel beyond low Earth orbit and around the Moon. Their crew broke Apollo 13's distance record of 400,171 km, reaching 406,771 km from Earth. Orion splashed down on April 10, 2026, local time (April 11 in UTC), in the Pacific southwest of San Diego, where the U.S. Navy recovered the crew.

The goal was a test: validate Orion's systems, crew operations and procedures before sustained lunar exploration. Its objectives resembled Apollo 8's, and its free-return trajectory resembled Apollo 13's.

What comes next, as of October 2026: Artemis III, scheduled for late 2027, is to test a lunar lander in Earth orbit, and Artemis IV, targeted for 2028, is to be the first crewed lunar landing since Apollo. NASA says that 2028 target has held since mid-2025. Beginning with Artemis V, scheduled for no earlier than late 2028, NASA intends yearly landings to build a permanent base.

Treat those dates as plans. Orion's first launch on the rocket was originally scheduled for 2016 and flew in November 2022.