REUTERS/via SNO Sites/Steve Nesius

The crew of the Artemis II launch mission to fly by the moon, NASA astronauts Reid Wiseman, Victor Glover and Christina Koch and CSA (Canadian Space Agency) astronaut Jeremy Hansen, walk to board the astronaut van for their drive to launch pad 39B at the Kennedy Space Centre in Cape Canaveral, Florida, U.S., April 1, 2026. REUTERS/Steve Nesius

The Artemis II was a rocket that was 5.75 million pounds and went up to the moon but did not land. It took five days to go up to the moon and then spun around it and took five more days to come back.  Although it was delayed many times, it still went up to the moon and came back down safe and sound.

The main goal that NASA set was to go up and take pictures of the moon to gather more information. But while they were up there, the toilet system was malfunctioning and had to be fixed multiple times and was a struggle, but they still made it work.

The Artemis II was the most powerful rocket that has ever been launched and it was the only mission that has been done for the past 50 years which was Apollo. There were four people that went on the Artemis II mission which were Reid Wisman, Victor Glover, Christina Koch, Jeremy Hansen.

The Artemis II was named after the Greek god Artemis, which was the daughter of the Greek Roman god Zeus and a great archer. NASA named the space shuttle Artemis II because it would be the second Artemis, which is after Zeus’s daughter and Artemis is a protecter and was probably hoped to protect the shuttle.