Want to hear the songs Artemis II is waking up to in space? Here's the official playlist

NASA has officially released the custom wake-up playlist for the four astronauts of the Artemis II mission, who will hear the selected songs aboard the Orion spacecraft during their journey around the Moon in September 2025. This tradition, managed by the flight directors at NASA's Johnson Space Center in Houston, serves to boost crew morale and maintain a connection to Earth during the historic 10-day lunar flyby mission. The playlist is a modern evolution of a practice that dates back to the Gemini program in the 1960s. The original wake-up music tradition began with mission controllers playing songs over the radio to crews, most famously during the Apollo missions. For Artemis II, NASA commander Reid Wiseman, pilot Victor Glover, mission specialist Christina Koch, and Canadian Space Agency mission specialist Jeremy Hansen each contributed personal song choices. The playlist, which includes a mix of genres from rock and country to classical and pop, is designed to be a psychological tool, providing a familiar and uplifting start to each day in the isolating environment of deep space. This release is part of NASA's broader public engagement strategy, humanizing the astronauts and building excitement for the first crewed lunar mission since Apollo 17 in 1972. The selection process highlights the crew's personalities and the international nature of the mission, while honoring the legacy of past spaceflight traditions. The playlist will not only be heard by the crew but has been shared publicly, allowing people on Earth to participate symbolically in the mission's daily rhythm.