NASA’s upcoming Artemis II flight will be the first crewed lunar mission in over 50 years, but it will not land on the moon. Here’s why.

For the first time in more than half a century, humans are preparing to leave Earth’s orbit and head near the moon, with NASA’s Artemis 2 mission set to launch in 2026. Decades after the last Apollo astronauts gazed back at our celestial neighbor,

What’s different about this 10-day test flight is not only that it returns astronauts to the vicinity of the moon for the first time in more than 50 years but it will give those astronauts a unique vantage point of Earth’s moon.

The rollout sets the stage for tests and dress rehearsals ahead of NASA's first crewed flight to the moon in more than 50 years. The mission could launch in three weeks.

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 ...

That misalignment means the tidal bulges pull on the Moon gravitationally, which gradually speeds up the Moon’s orbit. When an orbiting object speeds up, it moves to a higher orbit, so the Moon slowly spirals outward.

As of Friday, Jan. 16, the Moon phase is Waning Crescent. According to NASA's Daily Moon Guide, 5% of the Moon will be lit up tonight. Unfortunately, visibility is too low to spot anything on the moon tonight. The next Full Moon will be on Feb. 1. The last full moon was on Jan. 3.

It is true that astronomers discovered "a relatively short-lived quasi-satellite of Earth" and dubbed it 2025 PN7, according to a paper published by the American Astronomical Society in September 2025, which also mentioned the existence of six other known quasi-satellites, also called "quasi-moons," currently orbiting alongside Earth.

This past weekend, the Artemis II rocket was rolled out to Launch Pad 39B at Kennedy Space Center. It is to take humans to the moon for the first time since Apollo.