Will Artemis II fly before Starship Flight 12?

Ṁ1kṀ18k

Dec 31

61%

chance

ALL

Resolution criteria

Artemis II resolves YES if it launches before Starship Flight 12. Artemis II is scheduled for no earlier than February 6, 2026, with a launch window extending through April 2026. Starship Flight 12 is targeted for Q1 2026. Resolution will be determined by official launch confirmations from NASA and SpaceX respectively.

Background

Artemis II will carry four astronauts—NASA's Reid Wiseman, Victor Glover, and Christina Koch, along with Canadian Space Agency astronaut Jeremy Hansen—on a 10-day mission around the Moon. Starship Flight 12 will be the first Starship test flight involving Block 3 vehicles, likely featuring Booster 19 and Ship 39. Both vehicles are expected to undergo testing in the February to March timeframe.

Considerations

Both missions face potential delays common to complex spaceflight programs. Artemis II has already experienced multiple delays, with the October 2024 Inspector General review indicating the September 2025 target was unlikely to hold, leading to a December 2024 announcement of an April 2026 target. Starship Flight 12's flight profile remains largely unknown, with SpaceX potentially opting for soft splashdown of both vehicles given the introduction of the untested Block 3 design.

Artemis II - NASA

Four astronauts will venture around the Moon on Artemis II, the first crewed mission on NASA's path to establishing a long-term presence at the Moon for science and exploration through Artemis. The 10-day flight will help confirm systems and hardware needed for early human lunar exploration missions.

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Market context

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bought Ṁ50 YES

It's looking like it will be down to the wire. I wonder is SpaceX is racing SLS to launch.

@LarsOsborne this is why i love this kind of market it can get very volatile if we get lucky and its close. Check out this one thats resolved.

https://www.nasa.gov/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/artemis-ii-mission-availability.pdf

Found a nice diagram for launch windows of Artemis 2. Curious when NO betters are expecting Artemis to delay till and when they might suspect Starship 12 flight to happen.

Whats your theory?

Personally I would be buying Yes till 90%.

opened a Ṁ2,000 NO at 85% order

@RyanTyznar 2,000 no at 85 limit order up. Valid today only.

@Bayesian its at least a 4 figure limit order if you are interested

@MRME lol i guess i jinxed it! i wont bet on my own market but im still curious why so high. There’s no real signs of a starship 12 launch just yet unless im missing something.

@RyanTyznar If you believe Elon time, Starship is early to mid march.

Artemis windows are early march or early April.

So if Artemis is delayed further, starship launch before Artemis seems like a real possibility. If neither are delayed, there is a at least a small chance Starship goes first.

I think Artemis is still more likely to go first than starship, but I'd believe the 60-80% range a lot more than the 90%+ range. At 90% (your claim), you are basically assigning a 0% chance of further Artemis delay AND ignoring the "out" of starship beating Artemis by just a day in early March or something like that.

@RyanTyznar I'm betting against Artemis II for all the many reasons that manned rockets scrub and/or get delayed. Storms, high altitude winds, boats or airplanes wandering into the range, rough seas in abort-recovery zones, ground supprt equipment issues, issues with seals, issues with otters, issues with the mobile launch tower, etc.

SLS has a very long countdown that is relatively poorly rehearsed. There are still a lot of unknown issues that could crop up. It won't take many scrubs or delays before they're out of their early april launch window and will need to wait another month.

Meanwhile, I expect Starship to fly before Artemis' late April/ early May window opens. They too may have scrubs, but they cycle a lot faster and it's unmanned. It'll get off the pad within a week of their first attempt.

My odds have shifted over time (I'm getting a tiny bit more optimistic that Artemis will make the window), but 50% chance of a roughly-ontime launch is still too optimistic, IMO. So I'm betting against.