Artemis II will be the first crewed deep-space mission in my lifetime, and I’m looking forward to witnessing it.
As I’m writing this, the betting market Kalshi gives Artemis II a 62% chance of launching as scheduled on April 1. The chance that it launches before April 5 is 73%. The weather conditions are 80% likely to be favorable according to NASA. According to the forecasting website Metaculus, the aggregate probability that Artemis II will successfully complete its mission in 2026 is 79%.
Artemis II is the first mission to send humans to the moon since the Apollo program ended in 1972, 54 years ago. Like Apollo 8 in 1968, Artemis II will orbit the moon a few times without landing there. The first crewed lunar landing since Apollo is scheduled for 2028 with Artemis IV.
One risk that the Artemis program has encountered and that seems not to have been solved fully is related to the integrity of its heatshield. Even so, as the probabilities above show, it’s likely that Artemis II will be successful. I hope so, since its failure wouldn’t just result in human tragedy, but also cause a severe crisis for crewed spaceflight.
| Apollo 8 | Artemis II | |
| Launch date | April 1, 2026 or later | December 21, 1968 |
| Mission architecture | Space Launch System (SLS) launches Orion to high Earth orbit, then a free-return flyby around the Moon’s far side before Earth splashdown | Saturn V launched Apollo’s command-service module on a free-return mission that entered lunar orbit before Earth splashdown |
| Crew | 3: Frank Borman, James Lovell, William Anders | 4: Reid Wiseman, Victor Glover, Christina Koch, Jeremy Hansen |
| Mission duration | 6 days | 10 days (includes more time spent in Earth orbit) |
| Lunar orbits | 10 | 0 (flyby, not orbit) |
| Distance from Earth | 386,000 km | Up to 400,000 km (may be the furthest from Earth ever, depending on how the launch goes) |
| Time spent developing program | 7 years, 7 months | 8 years, 4 months |
| Cost | $25bn ($187bn in 2026) | $93bn |
Nehaveigur 