50 free Artemis Program trivia questions with answers — science & nature quiz, new questions added Aug 2026.
Artemis is NASA's effort to put people back on the Moon for the first time since Apollo 17, built from Shuttle engines, a capsule rescued from the cancelled Constellation program and landers bought from private companies. Artemis I sent an uncrewed Orion around the Moon in 2022 with a mannequin named Moonikin Campos in the commander's seat; Artemis II carried four astronauts on a lunar flyby in April 2026 and broke Apollo 13's distance record. These 50 questions cover the hardware, the missions and the politics. The Space Launch System and its four RS-25 engines, Orion's European Service Module, the distant retrograde orbit, Snoopy as zero-g indicator, the heat-shield erosion that reshaped Artemis II's reentry, the crew of Integrity, the Starship and Blue Moon landers, the Artemis Accords and the Gateway station that was paused in 2026. Easy questions stick to the goddess, the rocket and the crew; the expert tier asks about contract values, the HALO module's builder and the Centaur V upper stage. Every answer is cited to a page we checked.
30 of 50 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01Which agency leads the Artemis program?
NASA
International partners contribute hardware such as Orion's European Service Module.
Q 02The program is named after the Greek goddess who is the twin sister of which god?
Apollo
The name deliberately echoes NASA's 1960s Moon-landing program.
Q 03Which December 2017 presidential order formally established the program?
Space Policy Directive 1
It called for a US-led human return to the Moon followed by missions to Mars.
Q 04Which NASA administrator announced the Artemis name in May 2019?
Jim Bridenstine
Two months earlier Vice President Pence had pulled the landing target forward to 2024.
Q 05Which cancelled NASA program supplied the Orion spacecraft and booster designs to Artemis?
Constellation
Constellation's Ares I and Ares V rockets were cancelled in 2010.
Q 06What is the name of the rocket that launches Orion on Artemis missions?
Space Launch System
Its core stage uses four RS-25 engines left over from the Space Shuttle era.
Q 07How many RS-25 engines power the SLS core stage?
Four
They are the same engines that flew on the Space Shuttle orbiters.
Q 08Which company builds the SLS core stage?
Boeing
It is assembled at NASA's Michoud facility in New Orleans.
Q 09At which NASA site in New Orleans is the SLS core stage built?
Michoud Assembly Facility
The 8.4-metre diameter matches the old Shuttle external tank.
Q 10Which company builds Orion's crew module?
Lockheed Martin
Lockheed first proposed Orion as the Crew Exploration Vehicle in the early 2000s.
Q 11Who manufactures Orion's European Service Module?
Airbus Defence and Space
It is built in Bremen with European Space Agency funding.
Q 12Orion's first uncrewed test flight in 2014 launched atop which rocket?
Delta IV Heavy
Exploration Flight Test-1 lasted four hours and 24 minutes.
Q 13In which month and year did Artemis I launch?
November 2022
The launch had originally been pencilled in for late 2016.
Q 14What kind of path around the Moon did Orion follow for six days on Artemis I?
Q 21In which month of 2026 did Artemis II launch?
April
A helium-flow problem had forced a rollback to the assembly building in February.
Q 22Who commanded Artemis II?
Reid Wiseman
He was the oldest person ever to fly around the Moon.
Q 23Which Artemis II crew member was the first woman to travel around the Moon?
Christina Koch
She had earlier taken part in the first all-female spacewalk.
Q 24Which country did Artemis II mission specialist Jeremy Hansen represent?
Distant retrograde orbit
It spent about six days there before a second flyby and the trip home.
Q 15What was the name of the sensor-laden mannequin in Artemis I's commander seat?
Captain Moonikin Campos
It honoured Arturo Campos, an Apollo-era engineer.
Q 16Which cartoon character flew on Artemis I as the zero-g indicator?
Snoopy
A Shaun the Sheep toy rode along too, representing ESA's service module.
Q 17The phantom torsos Helga and Zohar on Artemis I measured what?
Radiation exposure
Zohar wore a protective AstroRad vest; Helga did not.
Q 18Which voice assistant was tested aboard Artemis I in the Callisto demonstration?
Amazon Alexa
Lockheed Martin built it with Amazon and Cisco, and the public could send messages to its screen.
Q 19Artemis I splashed down 50 years to the day after which 1972 Moon landing?
Apollo 17
The capsule came down in the Pacific west of Baja California on December 11, 2022.
Q 20What unexpected problem did Orion's heat shield show after Artemis I?
Greater-than-expected erosion
NASA kept the shield for Artemis II but steepened the reentry to shorten heating.
Canada
It was his first spaceflight and the first trip beyond low Earth orbit by a non-American.
Q 25What name did the Artemis II crew give their Orion spacecraft?
Integrity
They proposed naming a lunar crater after it during the flyby.
Q 26Whose distance record from Earth did the Artemis II crew break?
Apollo 13
Orion reached 252,756 miles from Earth, about 4,100 miles beyond the 1970 mark.
Q 27What kind of path carried Artemis II around the Moon and home with no extra burn?
Free-return trajectory
It resembled Apollo 13's path and needed no engine burn to come home.
Q 28What did the Artemis II crew observe shortly after their lunar flyby?
A solar eclipse
It lasted 57 minutes and revealed the corona along with meteoroid impact flashes on the Moon.
Q 29Which Navy ship recovered the Artemis II crew after splashdown?
USS John P. Murtha
It was the first Navy recovery of a NASA crew since Apollo–Soyuz in 1975.
Q 30The zero-gravity indicator 'Rise' on Artemis II was designed by whom?
An eight-year-old child
Lucas Ye's plush toy floated free once the crew reached orbit.