Artemis II Moon Mission Crew Trains on T-38 Supersonic Jet over Texas

Artemis II Moon Mission Crew Trains on T-38 Supersonic Jet over Texas

NASA astronaut Christina Koch and Canadian Space Agency astronaut Jeremy Hansen take off on a T-38 training flight from Ellington Field on Feb. 11, 2026, as a waning crescent Moon hovers above. Koch and Hansen, along with NASA astronauts Reid Wiseman and Victor Glover, are part of NASA’s Artemis II mission, the first crewed flight of the Space Launch System (SLS) rocket and Orion spacecraft. Artemis II will fly around the Moon and back to test Orion’s systems and capabilities before returning the crew to a splashdown off the California coast.

The Northrop Grumman T-38 Talon is a two-seat, twinjet supersonic jet trainer designed and produced by the American aircraft manufacturer Northrop Corporation, now known as Northrop Grumman. The T-38 was the world's first supersonic trainer as well as the most produced.

Update: The Artemis II SLS rocket will be rolled back to the Vehicle Assembly Building (VAB) at NASA's Kennedy Space Center due to an issues with fueling the rocket's upper stage with helium. This will make an April 2026 launch window necessary.

Read more about NASA's Space Launch System (SLS) rocket: nasa.gov/sls

NASA Artemis II Mission page:
https://www.nasa.gov/mission/artemis-ii/

Follow NASA updates on the Artemis Program blog: https://blogs.nasa.gov/artemis/

Image Credit: NASA/Brendan Finnegan
Image Date: Feb. 11, 2026

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