NEED TO KNOW
NASA shared what the crew members of the 10-day Artemis II mission will be eating on board
The menu, which balances nutritional requirements, crew preferences and spacecraft limitations, features 189 unique items
The menu has everything from vegetable quiche to broccoli au gratin to mango salad
What does an astronaut eat for breakfast?
The Artemis II crew menu features 189 unique items, including everything from five hot sauces to barbecued beef brisket, and has been planned extensively to support the crew of four astronauts on their 10-day mission, per NASA.
The meticulous menu has been “designed to support crew health and performance,” NASA said. Because there is no resupply, refrigeration or late-load options for this mission, all of the meals are shelf-stable and easily prepared in “microgravity” with minimal crumbs.
The menu highlighted some of the most common food items on board the spacecraft, including 58 tortillas.
“[Tortillas] have long been a practical staple in spaceflight because they are versatile, easy to eat in microgravity, and create far fewer crumbs than bread,” Victoria Segovia, a NASA public affairs specialist, told PEOPLE in an email. “Tortillas can also be paired with a wide range of foods, which gives the crew flexibility and variety across meals.”
Other common items featured included breakfast goods like breakfast sausage, wheat flat bread, vegetable quiche and granola with blueberries. Entrée items like barbecued beef brisket, broccoli au gratin, mac and cheese and spicy green beans are also on board.
The astronauts won’t be lacking in fruits and vegetables, as the menu features mango salad, a tropical fruit salad, butternut squash and cauliflower.
The Artemis II menu
Credit: NASA
Per NASA’s website, the astronauts are scheduled time to eat three meals each day (excluding launch and re-entry days).
They each get two flavored beverages a day, including coffee. The crew will consume 43 cups of coffee altogether in the 10-day mission, according to NASA.
While NASA noted that beverage options are limited due to restrictions on the amount of food and drink that can be on board, the astronauts can take their pick from over 10 drinks.
Mango-peach smoothies, chocolate breakfast drinks and cocoa are just a few of the varied options astronauts can choose from. The dessert options are widespread as well, from pudding to cobbler to cake to candy-coated almonds. The majority of desserts, however, are cookies and chocolate, NASA noted.
Meals can be topped with either one of the five different types of hot sauce they have on the spacecraft or other spreads and sauces like maple syrup, spicy mustard, peanut butter and honey.
The meals onboard are either ready-to-eat, rehydratable, thermostabilized or irradiated (exposed to ionizing radiation to become sterilized). The crew can rehydrate them with Orion’s potable water dispenser and a compact food warmer as needed, NASA said.
The website noted that the selections of the menu items are made by “space food experts” alongside the crew, noting caloric and nutrient intake needs, hydration and crew preferences.
“Personal preference plays an important role in menu planning because familiar foods can help support morale, variety, and overall menu acceptability during the mission. At the same time, every item still has to meet the mission’s nutritional, food safety, and operational requirements,” Segovia told PEOPLE.
The Artemis II crew will have three meals for each routine day on the mission
Credit: Paul Hennessy/Anadolu via Getty
Crew members sampled and evaluated the foods during preflight testing, NASA said on the website.
Xulei Wu, the Artemis’ Food System Manager, said in a NASA Johnson video that most of the food is made and packaged in the food lab at the Johnson Space Center, following “strict steps” to ensure it’s consistent and meets requirements.
She said food is important not just for nutrition, but for “morale.”
“Eating together really resonates with me. I think it’s just a human thing,” Artemis II crew member Jeremy Hansen said in the video.
“It represents togetherness and something a little out of the ordinary,” fellow crew member Christina Koch added. “It’s like a camping trip.”
In selecting the menu, NASA also had to account for the ship’s mass, volume and power requirements, the website said.
Online reactions were generally positive to the menu, with many joking that the astronauts are eating better than the commenters.
“Honestly this looks better than what I feed myself on Earth,” one person wrote.
NASA noted that Artemis II menus differ from the Apollo missions after “decades of advancement in space food systems.” The options are also different than those of the International Space Station, which receives resupplies and occasionally, fresh foods.
Artemis II launched in the Orion spacecraft on April 1, 2026 from the Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral, Fla., with a plan to travel around the far side of the moon and back in 10 days.
The last time astronauts went to the moon was in 1972 in Apollo 17, and Artemis II marks the first crewed flight test of both the Orion around the moon and the Space Launch System deep-space rocket. Artemis II’s goal is to confirm the operations of the spacecraft in deep space ahead of planned future expeditions to the moon.
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