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NASA Invites Public to Join Artemis II — Submit Your Name for the First Crewed Orion Flight

NASA is accepting name submissions to fly on an SD-card "boarding pass" aboard Artemis II, the first crewed flight of SLS and Orion. The mission, due by April 2026, will spend two days in Earth orbit for systems checks before heading to the Moon, passing behind the lunar far side, and traveling more than 2,500 miles beyond the Moon before returning. The four-person crew includes Reid Wiseman, Victor Glover, Christina Koch and Jeremy Hansen, and the flight will carry payloads testing solar-radiation effects as part of long-term plans toward human missions to Mars.

09:20 AM, 11/25/2025Science
NASA Invites Public to Join Artemis II — Submit Your Name for the First Crewed Orion Flight

NASA is inviting the public to have their names included on an SD-card "boarding pass" that will fly aboard Artemis II, the first crewed mission to use the Space Launch System (SLS) rocket and the Orion spacecraft.

The mission is scheduled to launch no later than April 2026. After liftoff, the crewed Orion will remain in Earth orbit for roughly two days to exercise, evaluate systems and run diagnostics. Following that checkout, the spacecraft will perform a trans-lunar injection to escape Earth's gravity, pass behind the Moon's far side, travel more than 2,500 miles beyond the lunar surface, and then return to Earth.

Science, testing and the path to Mars

Artemis II will carry scientific payloads in addition to its four-person crew. These experiments are designed to test how deep-space conditions, including solar radiation, affect materials such as food and other mission-critical supplies. NASA says the data from Artemis missions are stepping stones toward enabling sustained human exploration of the Moon and, ultimately, human missions to Mars.

Crew and how to participate

Artemis II crew: Commander Reid Wiseman, Pilot Victor Glover, Mission Specialist Christina Koch, and Mission Specialist Jeremy Hansen (Canadian Space Agency).

Members of the public who wish to have their names included can submit them through NASA's official name-submission page. Submitted names will be stored on an SD card that will be placed aboard the Orion spacecraft for the Artemis II flight.

Where Artemis II follows Artemis I

For comparison, Artemis I — an uncrewed test flight launched on Nov. 16, 2022 — sent Orion more than 3,000 miles beyond the Moon and logged roughly 1.4 million miles over a 25-day mission. Orion re-entered Earth's atmosphere and splashed down in the Pacific on Dec. 11 after reaching reentry speeds near 24,581 miles per hour (about Mach 32).

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