April 9, 2026

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What's the deal with the Artemis II music? The crew finally gave us some answers

It's NASA tradition to wake up astronauts with a song. Here are the crew's favorites

By Jackie Flynn Mogensen edited by Lee Billings

Midway through their lunar observation period, the Artemis II crew members, seen here (From left to right: Victor Glover, Jeremy Hansen, Reid Wiseman, and Christina Koch), pause to turn the camera around for a selfie inside the Orion spacecraft.

NASA

NASA has launched four astronauts on a pioneering journey around the moon—the Artemis II mission. Follow our coverage here.

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Each day of the Artemis II mission around the moon, per NASA tradition, the Orion crew has woken up to a different song. So far that's included everything from softer tunes such as "Sleepyhead" by Young & Sick to CeeLo Green's upbeat "Working Class Heroes" and pop hit "Pink Pony Club" by Chappell Roan. The songs were selected by "the moon crew," according to NASA and, on Wednesday, the four Artemis II astronauts finally gave some insight into the stories behind the songs.

"My family suggested the one this morning—'Under Pressure' [by Queen and David Bowie]—and so that's been my my favorite so far," Canadian Space Agency (CSA) astronaut Jeremy Hansen shared during a live conversation with Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney, who'd called into the Orion spacecraft on Wednesday night.

NASA astronaut Victor Glover revealed that his wife replaced one of his songs with "Good Morning" by Mandisa and TobyMac. "It was actually really pleasant to wake up to, and so I give her a shout-out. That was my favorite one." (Follow NASA's official Artemis II mission Spotify playlist here.)

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"Tokyo Drifting" by Glass Animals and Denzel Curry, meanwhile, is a song that NASA astronaut Reid Wiseman listens to "every year" on vacation to Florida with his daughters, he said. "That one meant the most to me."

NASA astronaut Christina Koch selected "Sleepyhead" because it played after a four-hour nap on the first day of the mission. "After being awake for—I'm not sure how long, but many, many, many, many hours, I knew that we would need a little backup on that," she said.

"The wake up songs have been absolute perfection," Koch added. "However, they did cut off 'Pink Pony Club' before the chorus," she said, a reference to the crew's all-too-short Saturday wake-up song. "I really was just singing it all day after that."

The tradition of waking astronauts from their slumber with music dates back to at least 1965, according to an agency report compiled by now-retired NASA historian Colin Fries. The Gemini 6 mission that year, for instance, included “Hello Dolly” by Jack Jones, while Gemini 7 played composers Ludwig van Beethoven and Johann Sebastian Bach, records show.

In 1969, the Apollo 10 mission astronauts were reportedly blessed by the sounds of Frank Sinatra (“It’s Nice to Go Trav’ling”) and Tony Bennett (“The Best Is Yet To Come”). On the Space Shuttle, which ferried astronauts to space between 1981 and 2011, crews were treated to songs including “On the Road Again” by Willie Nelson (in 1982), Steppenwolf's “Born to Be Wild” (1990), and “Son of a Son of a Sailor” by Jimmy Buffett (1992). In 2005, Paul McCartney performed "English Tea" and "Good Day Sunshine" live for the International Space Station crew.

Looking to the final days of the Artemis II mission, Hansen said his "second favorite" song after "Under Pressure" will be on landing day. "I'll let you wait to see what that one is," he said. "It's appropriate for the day."

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What's the deal with the Artemis II music? The crew finally gave us some answers | Scientific American