NASA's Curious Universe - Launching Soon: Artemis II

Episode Date: January 8, 2026

This year, four NASA astronauts are flying around the Moon and back—and Curious Universe is bringing you along for the ride. The mission is called Artemis II. It’s a key test flight that will set the stage for future missions to land on the lunar South Pole for the first time and set up a long-term presence there. In this limited series, get to know your Artemis II astronaut crew, go behind the scenes at NASA facilities across the country and discover the teamwork, passion and problem-solving fueling humanity’s return to the Moon—and beyond.  For Artemis II news and the latest launch information, visit nasa.gov/artemis-ii

I was just a kid in grade school at the end of the Apollo program, and I remember watching those moon landings with my classmates. Tangleity base here. The eagle has landed. Roger Twink. Tranquility. We copy you on the ground. And being so intrigued, so curious, so inspired. That's one small step for man. Apollo made the world stop and look. And as we leave the moon and towards literal, we leave as we came,

and God willing, as we shall return with peace and in hope, for all man time. And I think that Artemis will do the same thing. The world will stop and look up in wonder, and intrigue, and will feel a sense of accomplishment. And here we go. Phydrogen burn off. Pushing ourselves to explore is just core to who we are.

That's a part of being a human. We want to know what's out there just beyond the horizon. And so the Artemis program is our opportunity. And lift off of Artemis I. We rise together back to the moon and beyond. At a high level, the Artemis 2 mission launches out of Kennedy Space Center on the space launch system in Orion spacecraft, and the crew will travel two orbits around Earth

and then head onto the moon, 250,000 miles from Earth. There's only one primary goal of Artemis II is to prepare this spacecraft for Artemis 3 and for our NASA astronauts to go land on the moon. Artemis is the twin sister of Apollo. That's intentional. It is to remind us that we're going to go do great things. Yes, we're going to put humans back on the surface of the moon,

but we're not stopping there. When you see us fly around the moon on Artemis 2, that is just a snippet. just a snippet of the incredible things that are to come. We're going back to the moon because it's the next step in our journey to Mars. We need to go explore the moon. There's vast regions of unexplored areas with the coldest, darkest places in our solar system.

From the time humans started exploring, this was always in our future and in our fate. We were always going to the moon. In our lifetime, we've looked at the moon knowing that people had been there. And now in the Artemis generation, kids will walk out and look at the moon. going, we are there. We are there now, and we are going further into our solar system. I'm Christina Cook. Jeremy Hanson. I'm Victor Glover. NASA astronaut Reed Wiseman. I'm going to fly with Victor Glover, Christina Cook, and Jeremy Hanson, around the moon and safely back to Earth. NASA is making history. And we're bringing you the inside story.

Get to know the Artemis 2 astronauts like you won't hear them anywhere else. And meet the people behind the scenes, lifting them to space. a special Artemis II series of Curious Universe. An official NASA podcast. Coming soon.