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Artemis II Crew Finalizes Deep-Space Health Studies as February 2026 Moon Flyby Nears

NASA is pairing a lunar flyby with in-flight human-health research to inform longer missions.

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Canadian Space Agency astronaut Jeremy Hansen, seen here, and three NASA astronauts — Victor Glover, Reid Wiseman and Christina Koch — could be blasting off on the Artemis II mission to fly around the moon as early as February 2026. They will not only be testing their Orion spacecraft, but also conducting valuable health research on living in deep space.

Overview

  • NASA targets an earliest launch window in February 2026 for the roughly 10-day Orion flyby with Reid Wiseman, Victor Glover, Christina Koch and Canadian astronaut Jeremy Hansen aboard.
  • ARCHeR will track sleep, stress and cognition using watch-like wearables before, during and after the mission to build a baseline for crew health in deep space.
  • AVATAR chips carrying each astronaut’s blood cells will fly as surrogates for bone marrow to study radiation exposure and immune responses beyond Earth’s protective field.
  • The crew will collect dry saliva samples in flight to analyze biomarkers and assess whether dormant viruses reactivate during deep-space travel.
  • The capsule, named Integrity, offers tight living quarters for the tightly scheduled mission, and Canada’s role includes Hansen’s potential first trip by a non-American beyond low-Earth orbit and a small selection of Canadian foods for the crew.