Claim : NASA will send humans to the Moon on February 08, 2026 for the first time in 54 years.
Conclusion : The claim is misleading. Artemis II will carry four astronauts around the Moon and back but does not land on the Moon. The Feb. 8 date was real as an earliest possible launch window, but it has changed to April 2026, as listed on the NASA website.
Rating : Misleading 
Several social media users have claimed that NASA is going to send humans to the Moon for the first time in 54 years. Verified X user ‘forallcurious’ shared such a claim with the caption “BREAKING: NASA will send HUMANS to the Moon on February 08, for the first time in 54 years” Attached to the post is the image of the four astronauts who are going to travel. The post gained more than 2 million views and can be seen below –
BREAKING🚨: NASA will send HUMANS to the Moon on February 08, for the first time in 54 years pic.twitter.com/ir4IkpDPdw
— All day Astronomy (@forallcurious) February 1, 2026
Other users have shared similar claims which can be seen here and here
NASA will send HUMANS on a mission to the Moon on February 8, the first moon mission in 54 years pic.twitter.com/buA8HuyWau
— Earth (@earthcurated) February 2, 2026
FACT CHECK
DigitEYE India decided to investigate this claim and found that it is misleading. Artemis II is planned to send four astronauts on a crewed flyby of the Moon before returning to Earth, without a lunar landing. While February 8 was once decided as the earliest potential launch date, the schedule has since shifted to April 2026, as listed on the NASA website.
Details:
We first conducted a web search with the phrase “NASA moon mission after 54 years” to learn more. The search took us to NASA’s official page that gives more information on the Artemis II rocket. NASA officially describes Artemis II as a “Crewed Lunar Flyby” on its own website and not a landing mission.
Following this, we landed on another page about Artemis II that emphasizes the same message. Once again under the “Mission Type” section, NASA has stated that it is a “Crewed Lunar Flyby”. Moreover, the launch date given in the website is April 2026, not February 8, 2026 as mentioned in the claim. View a screenshot of this section below –
Furthemore, when we checked the Artemis Crew section, we learned that it will carry four astronauts. The names of the four astronauts are Reid Wiseman, Victor Glover, Christina Koch and Jeremy Hansen. The page clearly states that “the astronauts who will venture around the Moon on Artemis II” and not about landing on the moon.
Otherwise, Artemis 2 is a crewed lunar flyby mission designed to validate Orion, SLS and the mission operations needed for future landings. While Artemis 1 successfully flew Orion around the moon without astronauts in 2022, Artemis 2 will be the first time humans travel aboard the spacecraft and venture beyond low Earth orbit in more than 50 years. During the mission, astronauts will travel thousands of miles beyond the moon, experience deep-space radiation, and test life-support, navigation and communications systems in real flight conditions.
Artemis 2 will not land on the moon. Instead, it serves as a critical stepping stone toward future Artemis missions that aim to put astronauts on the lunar surface later in the decade.
Another NCB news report published on February 3, 2026 wrote about how the wet-dress rehearsal completed on 2 February encountered multiple issues. Some of them included “spike in the liquid hydrogen leak rate…several audio issues in communication channels” that delayed the launch. The report also mentions “NASA stating the available launch opportunities from March 6 through March 9, and on March 11, with additional dates in April, if needed.”
Reports by Reuters and The Guardian have also confirmed that the launch window has been pushed to March.
Lastly, NASA landed humans on the Moon was during the Apollo 17 mission, which landed on December 11, 1972. Artemis II will be the first crewed flight beyond low-Earth orbit since then, but it does not land humans to the Moon’s surface.
Thus, the claim is misleading.
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