Hitching a Ride on History: NASA’s Space Launch System Artemis II CubeSats

In early 2026, NASA will launch the Artemis II mission, the second flight of its Orion spacecraft and Space Launch System (SLS) rocket. Artemis II will be the first crewed flight of the systems and will see four astronauts venture around the Moon as a key step toward establishing a long-term human presence in deep space. The 10-day flight will demonstrate NASA's foundational human deep space exploration capabilities. Launching along with Orion on SLS will be four 12U CubeSats developed through partnerships with space agencies around the world that are signatories of the Artemis Accords. The CubeSats will deploy in a highly elliptical Earth orbit and will perform scientific research and technology demonstrations in space at a range of distances from Earth. This paper will provide an overview of the Artemis II mission and CubeSat payloads, as well as additional information about SLS secondary payloads.