Resolution Criteria
The earliest launch window for Artemis II opens on February 5–11, 2026 with the mission planned to launch no earlier than February 6, 2026. This market resolves to the calendar date on which Artemis II actually launches. Resolution will be determined by official NASA announcements and confirmed by NASA's official mission status page at https://www.nasa.gov/mission/artemis-ii/. A dress rehearsal of the countdown is planned for early February, and NASA Administrator Jared Isaacman has stated that an actual launch date will only be confirmed after that is complete.
Background
The 10-day mission will carry NASA astronauts Reid Wiseman, Victor Glover, and Christina Koch, along with Canadian Space Agency astronaut Jeremy Hansen, on a free-return trajectory around the Moon and back to Earth. On January 18, 2026, the SLS rocket, Orion capsule, and launch tower were rolled out from the Vehicle Assembly Building to Launch Complex 39B. A wet dress rehearsal is targeted for no later than Feb. 2, during which the team will load the rocket with cryogenic propellants, run through the countdown, and practice safely draining the propellants from the rocket.
Considerations
Because Artemis II is the first crewed flight test of the Artemis campaign, running into a few issues that could cause delays is probable. The uncrewed Artemis I mission, for example, was delayed three times – twice for technical issues and another time due to bad weather – before launching in November 2022.
Update 2026-02-02 (PST) (AI summary of creator comment): The market will resolve based on the local time at the launch site (Kennedy Space Center, Florida) for determining which calendar date the launch occurs on.
Update 2026-02-02 (PST) (AI summary of creator comment): The market will resolve based on the actual launch date, not the launch window dates. If Artemis II launches on February 9th, the market will resolve to either Other or a new February 9, 2026 option (not to February 8th based on the launch window).
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@ChristopherRandles I'm assuming based on the dates they are going by local time..
https://www.nasa.gov/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/artemis-ii-mission-availability.pdf
Edit: I also further assume they refer to the launch windows above.... Technically it could launch on the 9th in the morning given the 2 hour window ... but I assume this would resolve to the 8th..
@parhizj not the launch windows - if it launches on the 9th it will resolve to either Other or a new February 9 2026 option.
Referencing ECMWF (9km 1-hr for the temperature constraints) and the 0.25 deg public one for the ensembles to get spreads for various variables) the most serious constraint for the first possible upcoming wet dress rehearsal is the 24h average temperature:
(Quoting https://www.nasa.gov/artemis-ii-weather-criteria/):
"Do not initiate tanking if the 24-hour average temperature at both 132.5 feet and 257.5 feet is less than 41.4 degrees Fahrenheit."
By my best guess for the first wet dress rehearsal (WDR) the tanking should start around 2026-02-02 17:00:00 (possibly being delayed up to 1-3 hours I'd guess) but the 24 hour average temps should be below, violating this constraint (the spread for the ensemble is fairly small when its not far out (95% CI of ~ +- 1 C) and so I have fairly good confidence given the 2m IFS temps temps are for 17Z to 19Z (for the rolling 24 hour average prior 4C or below) (the temps at the heights mentioned will be slightly colder)
The next 2 possible WDRs don't seem to have a temperature constraint issue. None of the WDRs or launches seem to have a wind issue near the surface. Unfortunately so far out (~ 10-11 days) is too far to predict the jetstream location, and that might be an issue with respect to vertical wind shear at the higher levels. The det. model indicates ~100 kt VWS (200-850mb, gradual mostly in the same direction as you would expect) on Feb 10, and ~50 kt on the Feb. 11 window. The ensemble also shows a similar pattern with Feb. 11 being slightly more favorable. However this can only be said with low confidence so far out. That it seems like it will most llkely be gradual doesn't seem to indicate Feb. 10 is ruled out despite it being fairly high... (it depends within a specific layer I assume which won't be known until a short time beforehand).
With the first launch window excluded due to the first WDR being likely ruled out as mentioned above, that leaves the other two (10th and 11th). The temps for the launches should likely have no problems. Same for low-level winds.
Clouds are always going to be an unknown but the pattern in the ensembles suggest the 10th is slightly more favorable than the 11th.
Per the det. models lightning does not seem to be an issue as CAPE is essentially 0 for the entire period of interest so this should satisfy the 20% lightning constraint (Same is confirmed with ECMWF's lightning density product for its ensembles). So weather I'd roughly estimate is >95% favorable for the remaining WDRs, and for the launches >90% with low confidence (VWS being the limiting factor as a known-unknown). Overall subjectively I expect the weather then having >85% of being favorable for the other two launch windows.
With weather discussed, that only leaves priors for launches. As I am less interested in this, I leave the estimation of the probability for some non-weather related issue to impede the WDR / launches to chatgpt (which gives it conditionally 55-75% of it launching). Conditioning on this with my rough subjective estimate of 85% of favorable weather leaves the chances of a launch on one of the remaining two days to 0.65*0.85 ~= 55%. As mentioned the wind shear is worse on Feb. 10 then 11, but the 11th may be a bit more cloudy perhaps. The VWS seems a more serious issue so I will favor the 11th slightly.
I note that NASA has now provided a detailed timeline for their first WDR…
https://www.nasa.gov/blogs/missions/2026/01/31/countdown-begins-for-artemis-ii-wet-dress-rehearsal/
The go/no go for tanking is around 15:40Z (a few hours ahead of my estimate but should actually make it more difficult to the go ahead)… I’m a bit surprised they went ahead with this given the schedule.. Maybe they have a different forecast but this still seems unlikely. I assumed they would postpone the wet dress rehearsal a day so they could do the tanking…. I don’t know what happens if they can’t as far as another rehearsal (but another one seems unlikely). Given thus the tightness in the schedule I’m going increase the bet in Other assuming that they won’t be able to do the full WDR.
ok reviewing the 1hr 9km, 00Z ecmwf point data to get the 24 rolling average again its still too cold for tanking tomorrow (Feb 2 at 15Z) when they have to make the decision:
The no-go cold cut off for the 24 hour average window is 5.22 C for the 132.5 and 257.5 ft heights.
The IFS 2m temperature has it at ~3C for 15Z (it does warm slowly as time passes but no where near enough - i.e. at 19Z its 4.1C and doesn't reach 5.2C until Feb 03/02Z) (the 1000 hPa temps which is at ~ 741 ft) are cooler so we can assume it will be slightly cooler than that).
Naively linearly interpolating AIFS at 15Z between 2m and the corresponding 1000 hPa heights (which is even cooler still at 2.2C for the 24 hour average 2m temp) brings it down to 2.04C and 1.88C respectively for the 24 hour average at the two height criteria; none of which reach 5.2C for the duration of this rehearsal...
Speculating, I assume if they abort on Feb. 2, the best they can do is start another wet dress rehearsal (the 48 hour countdown), and maybe (theoretically) they could restart the 48 hour countdown late on the 2nd (hours later) assuming a simulated launch window for the 4th) but I assume there might be some other scheduling/technical details/bureaucracy that would delay it at least a day so the 48 hour countdown starts the night of Feb. 3 instead, with a simulated launch on the night of Feb 5. (for either of these two successive scenarios the weather looks favorable).
Assuming again they need 6 days to review that leaves only the launch for Feb. 11 as a possibility (I did not review the upper level wind shear, cloud cover, or lightning products but everything else as far as temperature and low level wind looks ok.). So I leave Feb 10 as is and bet up Feb 11 again....
Haven't checked the 12Z forecast but went back and checked the calibration for the earlier 00Z IFS forecast against the nearest METAR to the launch site (KTSS). Considering the temp is at 10m and the model temps are 2m I'd say the point forecast is well calibrated, albeit this is a small sample of 23 rows but should be good enough for the 24hr rolling average tomorrow ...
Here is the ASOS data from Iowa state for KTSS which doesn't round....
According to the schedule they should have already started their weather and tanking briefing now (14:20Z)... and the 24 hour average 2m temps IS below the 5.222C cutoff which implies the temps at the slightly higher heights of 132.5 and 257.5 ft will also be violated (including into the future), violating their constraints for the tanking.
Note, there is one missing observation that i've filled in (on the conservative warm side) loosely based on the trend from IFS. The future numbers are adjusted IFS temps. The green cell is the last 24 hour average observation they should have had before the briefing started (~ 1.96C -- roughly since I am inferring one of the missing values).
Edit (00:55Z is missing from today and yesterday so I had to correct the calculations):
Just updating now on VWS looking at soundings from the ECMWF point forecasts from tropicaltidbits (which still have low confidence so far out..) the VWS within a layer (like 400-300 hPa and 500-400 hPa) have worse gradients on the 10th and 11th than the 9th (the deep layer VWS though is still high around 90-110 kt for the different days, as it passes near or through the jet stream), with gradients of around 10 m/s per km for the layers mentioned for the 10th and 11th. So I've switched to favoring the earlier Feb. 9th window as it has a smoother gradient with respect to vertical wind shear...
