This is the spacecraft that NASA will launch to the moon, taking four astronauts to orbit Earth’s natural satellite for the first time since 1972.
The Orion spacecraft, which will be used for the space agency’s Artemis 2 mission to orbit the moon, underwent checks last week inside the Neil A. Armstrong Operations and Checkout building at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida.
Artemis 2 will be a 10-day test flight that will launch in September 2026 on the agency’s Space Launch System rocket. It will be the first time astronauts have gone to space atop an SLS, which provides more than two million pounds of thrust, according to NASA.
Core Stage
An image of the 212-foot SLS core stage at NASA’s Michoud Assembly Facility in New Orleans was published last month. The stage’s two propellant tanks hold a collective 733,000 gallons of liquid propellant to power four RS-25 engines at its base. It will soon be on its way, via barge, to KSC.
Artemis 2 will be the follow-up to Artemis 1, which went beyond the moon in late 2022, but with no astronauts on board.
Eclipse Of The Sun
Planned to be the first of three crewed missions to the moon, Artemis 2 will test Orion’s life support systems with four astronauts aboard.
After launching from pad 39B at KSC, Orion will orbit Earth twice before moving into a highly elliptical orbit. About 24 hours later, the crew will experience a brief eclipse of the sun by the moon before going for what rocket scientists call translunar injection—a manoeuvre that sends a spacecraft on an unstoppable journey to orbit the moon.
Artemis 2 will not see any of its four crew land on the moon. Similar to 1968’s Apollo 8 mission—the first time humans left Earth orbit—Artemis 2 will be a lunar flyby. However, Orion will also travel 4,600 miles beyond the far side of the moon.
After its return to Earth, Orion will splashdown in the Pacific Ocean.
Crew Prepare
The testing of Orion comes the same week that NASA announced astronaut Andre Douglas as a backup crew member for Artemis 2. He will train with the four crew already selected for the mission—NASA’s Reid Wiseman, Victor Glover and Christina Koch, and the Canadian Space Agency’s Jeremy Hansen. Hansen’s backup is Jenni Gibbons.
Artemis 2 is a pathfinder mission for Artemis 3, which is planned to be the second crewed mission of the program, and the first crewed lunar landing since Apollo 17 in 1972.
Walking On The Moon
During Artemis 3, two astronauts will descend to the surface on a lander provided by SpaceX, likely to land near Shackleton Crater close to the moon’s south pole. The names of the two astronauts are yet to be announced, but NASA has said that it plans to land the first woman and first person of color on the lunar surface.
In May, Douglas and fellow NASA astronaut Kate Rubins recently performed four moonwalk simulations for Artemis 3 at northern Arizona’s lunar surface-like San Francisco Volcanic Field.
Artemis missions are planned for every year beyond 2030, with Artemis 5, 6 and either 7 or 8 also scheduled to take astronauts to the lunar surface.
Wishing you clear skies and wide eyes.
