Following a delay in February and then a delay in March, NASA’s Space Launch System finally cleared the launchpad today for the Artemis II mission. This 10-day mission will see four astronauts fly by the Moon before returning to Earth, setting the stage for future Artemis missions, which will include Moon walks.
This mission includes four astronauts who have all got space time under their belts. The Commander is Reid Wiseman, who is a US Navy Captain and former Chief of the Astronaut Office. He is leading the mission and has spent 165 days in space. Victor Glover is the Pilot and also a US Navy Captain who piloted the SpaceX Crew-1 mission. He is also the first person of color to travel beyond low Earth orbit.
The Mission Specialist is Christina Koch, who is an electrical engineer and holds the record for the longest single spaceflight by a woman (328 days). She will be the first woman to fly in the vicinity of the Moon. Finally, Jeremy Hansen is a Mission Specialist too; he is a Colonel in the Royal Canadian Air Force and is the first non-American to leave Earth’s orbit and travel toward the Moon.
At the time of writing, NASA has completed most of the launch, with only the Apogee Raise Burn and Orion Separation remaining. All of that will be completed within three hours and 25 minutes after launch.
With the launch out of the way, the four astronauts will enter Earth orbit for the first 24 hours of their mission to test the life-support systems and perform a proximity operations demonstration. If all that goes well, it will then perform a Trans-Lunar Injection burn and take a four-day journey to the Moon.
Once it reaches the Moon, it will not enter orbit or land; instead, it will fly by at approximately 4,700 miles beyond the far side of the Moon. This could end up being the furthest humans have travelled into deep space.
After going around the Moon, the spacecraft will then begin its four-day journey back home for a high-speed reentry and a splashdown in the Pacific Ocean. Given that this mission took off on April 1 and it will last around 10 days, we can expect them to be back around April 10.