- Updated: April 1, 2026
- 2 min read
Artemis II Astronauts Board Astrovan at Launch Pad 39B Ahead of April 2026 Mission
NASA’s crew for the upcoming Artemis II mission was spotted boarding the iconic Astrovan at Launch Pad 39B, marking a key milestone on the path to the first crewed flight beyond low‑Earth orbit since Apollo. The four astronauts – Reid Wiseman, Victor Glover, Christina Koch and Jeremy Hansen – gathered in the bright daylight outside the historic pad, ready for the historic launch scheduled for early April 2026.
The Astrovan, a specially modified Chevrolet Suburban, has become a symbol of NASA’s human spaceflight program, transporting crews to the launch complex for decades. This year’s ride was captured in vivid detail, showcasing the excitement and camaraderie among the crew members as they prepared for the journey aboard the Space Launch System (SLS) rocket and the Orion spacecraft.
Artemis II will be the first crewed mission of NASA’s Artemis program, aiming to send astronauts on a lunar flyby before returning to Earth. The mission will test Orion’s life‑support systems, deep‑space navigation, and re‑entry capabilities, paving the way for future lunar surface explorations.
For a full look at the original coverage, visit the TechFixated article. Learn more about other space missions on our Space Missions page, and explore the details of NASA’s Artemis program on our Artemis II blog.
Andrii Bidochko
CTO UBOS
Andrii Bidochko is an AI entrepreneur and researcher focused on AI agents, reinforcement learning, and autonomous systems. He writes about the technologies shaping the future of machine intelligence, from frontier models and agent architectures to real-world AI applications.