- NASA has revealed its playlist of wake-up songs for the Artemis II crew
- Includes Pink Pony Club by Chappell Roan and a Sleepyhead cover by Passion Pit.
- This tradition dates back to the time of the Apollo missions.
In addition to being a huge mid-mission success, NASA’s Artemis II venture is one of the most important historic events of our time, but despite traveling through deep space, its astronauts haven’t missed the simple things we love about life on Earth.
From its food menu of much-loved delicacies to using the iPhone 17 Pro Max to take photos of our planet from afar, these things make life on the Orion spacecraft much more manageable, and the same goes for your choice of music. You heard right. In space, pop music still exists.
Manned by the Artemis II control team based in Houston, Texas, NASA is playing a series of songs on the Orion spacecraft as wake-up calls for astronauts Christina Koch, Reid Wiseman, Victor Glover and Jeremy Hansen. It’s a practical way to ensure the crew sticks to a schedule that aligns with the rest of the team on Earth.
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Amid all the seriousness of the Artemis II enterprise, this is one of the light-hearted elements of the space mission that people have been following online. NASA reveals each song with each wake-up call, so the next one may still be a surprise, but there have already been a slew of hits that NASA has issued to the crew since they launched into space on April 1.
The beginning of the series of calls for attention was Sleepyhead by Young and Sick (a cover of the original Passion Pit version), whose title fits how the team must have felt at the time.
The second wake-up call had the soundtrack by John Legend and Andre 3000. green lightfollowed by in a dream by Freddy Jones Band and viral pop pink pony club by Chappell Roan, which cut out just a minute into the song, prompting a humorous response from Wiseman: “We were anxiously awaiting the chorus,” he told the control crew.
NASA played chappell roan’s pink pony club to wake up the astronauts on artemis II this morning! “We were all anxiously waiting for the chorus” pic.twitter.com/n0pqgkDz16April 4, 2026
CeeLo Green’s Working class heroes (work)Mandisa and ToyMac’s Good dayand glass animals’ Tokyo adrift end the playlist. NASA has more songs on the way as the Artemis II crew returns to Earth, but we won’t know what they will be until NASA updates its official Spotify playlist, which you can stream right now.
It may surprise you, but this is not unique to the Artemis II mission. NASA’s tradition of sending wake-up calls dates back to the Apollo days, most notably when NASA used Frank Sinatra and Tony Bennett to wake up the crew, and not forgetting when the topic of 2001: A Space Odyssey It was used during the Apollo 15 mission in 1971.
What tracks would you like to hear if you were confined to the Orion spacecraft?
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