Short answers, pulled from the story.
Artemis II launched on the 1st of April 2026 at 22:35:12 UTC from Kennedy Space Center's Launch Complex 39B. The mission ended with splashdown on the 11th of April 2026 at 00:07:27 UTC in the Pacific Ocean southwest of San Diego, California, for a total mission duration of approximately ten days.
Artemis II was crewed by commander Reid Wiseman, pilot Victor Glover, and mission specialists Christina Koch and Jeremy Hansen. Wiseman, Glover, and Koch were from the NASA Astronaut Corps; Hansen represented the Canadian Space Agency and was on his first spaceflight.
Artemis II set a new record for the farthest distance a crewed spacecraft has traveled from Earth, reaching 252,756 miles and surpassing Apollo 13's record of 248,655 miles. The mission also broke the record for the most people simultaneously in deep space, previously set at three by Apollo 8 in December 1968.
Artemis II could not enter lunar orbit because the European Service Module does not carry enough propellant to both insert into lunar orbit and then perform the trans-earth injection needed to return home. The spacecraft looped around the far side of the Moon and returned to Earth without requiring additional propulsion for the return leg.
After the uncrewed Artemis I mission in November 2022, NASA found unexpected erosion of the AVCOAT ablative heat shield material. Engineers determined that hot gases trapped within the material caused spalling and localized cracking during reentry. Rather than replace the shield, NASA modified the reentry trajectory by increasing the descent angle to reduce heating time, a change approved in December 2024 after an independent review.
Rise is a plush toy designed by Lucas Ye, an eight-year-old from Mountain View, California, whose entry won a NASA design competition that drew more than 2,600 submissions from over 50 countries. Inspired by the Apollo 8 Earthrise photograph, Rise depicts the Moon wearing Earth as a baseball cap. An SD card sewn inside it held names submitted through NASA's public boarding pass program.