Orion Ready for Flight: Lockheed Martin Hands Over Capsule for Artemis II

The finished Orion spacecraft for Artemis II // Photo: Lockheed Martin

With Artemis II on the horizon, Lockheed Martin delivers the spacecraft that will take humans farther than they’ve gone in half a century.

For the first time in over fifty years, NASA is preparing to launch astronauts into deep space — and now, the spacecraft that will take them there is ready. Today, May 1st, Lockheed Martin formally completed and transferred the Orion crew capsule to NASA, signaling that the vehicle for Artemis II is flight-ready and entering final launch preparations.

It’s a milestone years in the making. Orion, developed under NASA’s Artemis program, will be the spacecraft to carry humans beyond low Earth orbit for the first time since Apollo 17. This time, however, the goal isn’t just to plant flags and footprints — it’s to return and stay.

A Mission Decades in the Making

Artemis II is slated to launch no earlier than April 2026 and will be the first crewed flight of the Artemis program. The mission will send four astronauts — NASA’s Reid Wiseman, Victor Glover, Christina Koch, and Canadian Space Agency astronaut Jeremy Hansen — on a ten-day journey around the Moon and back. They won’t land, but their voyage will take them over 4,600 miles beyond the lunar surface — farther than any human has traveled before.

While Artemis I, launched in late 2022, proved the performance of the Space Launch System and Orion during an uncrewed mission, Artemis II will be the program’s first test of critical life support systems, deep space communications, and human-rated spacecraft functions in the real environment they’re meant to operate in.

“The spacecraft is complete, tested, and ready to move to the next phase,” said Lisa Callahan, vice president and general manager of Commercial Civil Space at Lockheed Martin. “Orion will soon be integrated with its European service module and ultimately joined to the SLS — a fully stacked system that will carry humanity toward the Moon again.”

First SLS rollout from NASA's VAB March 17th, 2022 // Photo: Ryan Bale

Engineering a Deep Space Crew Vehicle

Constructed at Kennedy Space Center’s historic Operations and Checkout Building — the same facility used for Apollo — the Artemis II Orion capsule has undergone rigorous environmental testing, system verifications, and integration work. Engineers verified the spacecraft’s heat shield, propulsion, avionics, and safety systems, ensuring it meets the demanding standards of crewed lunar flight.

The capsule is connected to its European Space Agency–built service module, which provides power, propulsion, water, and thermal regulation. From there, it'll move to the Vehicle Assembly Building for stacking atop the SLS rocket, joining solid boosters, upper stage, and other components of the Artemis launch stack.

The entire vehicle will stand over 320 feet tall and deliver more thrust than the Saturn V.

Looking Toward a New Lunar Era

While Artemis II won’t land on the Moon, it is the critical gateway to doing so. The data and experience gathered from this flight will inform every aspect of Artemis III — which aims to land the first woman and the next man near the Moon’s south pole using SpaceX’s Human Landing System Starship.

Lockheed Martin is already working on the Orion capsule for that historic mission. Unlike Apollo, Artemis aims for sustainability: regular crew rotations, lunar habitats, and preparation for deep space travel to Mars.

The completion of the Artemis II Orion spacecraft marks a turning point not just for NASA, but for all of human spaceflight. For the first time in generations, we’re not just dreaming about the Moon — we’re building the machines that will take us there.