Quiz: Artemis Launch Ahead

Earlier this week, NASA confirmed that its long awaited (and many times delayed) Artemis II mission will launch by April 2026—but could launch as soon as February.

Mechanical Engineering profiled the Artemis mission and the engineering behind it in the January 2025 cover story, which is free to access for ASME members. 

The design of Space Launch System (SLS) was unveiled in 2011, and the first variant, called Block 1, launched the uncrewed Artemis I mission around the moon in 2022. Four more missions are expected to launch before 2030, with Artemis II gearing up to send a crew of four astronauts to complete a lunar flyby. Artemis III is scheduled for mid-2027 and is set to be NASA’s first crewed lunar landing since 1972. 

Building upon the engineering feats of the past six decades, more than 1,100 companies across the United States and at every NASA facility are supporting the program in some fashion. Although many of the same contractors, from Boeing to Lockheed Martin to Aerojet Rocketdyne, are developing solutions for Artemis much as they did on Apollo, they’re using vastly different tools, solutions, and engineering knowhow.

See what you know about some of the innovations behind the Artemis core stage rocket system with this ASME quiz.