Tonight, 01:36: The Artemis II mission took off on the first manned flight of the Artemis program, with four astronauts in the Orion spacecraft to orbit the Moon and back, as a crucial step toward resuming human presence on the Moon.
NASA launched Artemis II into lunar orbit on April 1 at 18:36 p.m. Eastern Time. (NASA)
Artemis II is the first crewed mission of the Artemis program, and the first manned flight to the lunar surface in more than fifty years. It will launch from the Kennedy Space Center in Florida aboard the SLS, carrying the Orion spacecraft. The crew consists of four astronauts: Reid Weisman as commander, Victor Glover as pilot, Christina Koch as mission specialist, and Jeremy Hansen of the Canadian Space Agency as mission specialist. NASA defines the mission as a manned test flight around the moon, designed to validate the capabilities needed for future manned deep space flights.
As a reminder, Artemis II is not supposed to land on the moon. This is the orbit and return, designed to test the systems before the next missions. After launch, Orion will first enter orbit around the Earth, perform a series of tests, and later go on a burn that will put it into orbit to the moon. During the first day, a proximity maneuver demonstration will also be performed around the launcher's upper stage, as an important practice for future docking of Orion with other spacecraft on subsequent missions.
The entire mission is scheduled to last about ten days. On the second day, the burn will take place, sending the spacecraft on its way to the moon in a “free-return” orbit, meaning an orbit that circles the far side of the moon and returns the spacecraft to Earth without entering a fixed lunar orbit. According to the plan, on the sixth day, Orion will pass behind the moon and reach a distance of about 6,400 to 9,700 kilometers from the surface. During this pass, communication with Earth will be lost for about 30 to 50 minutes. If the flight profile is realized as planned, the team may even break the distance record from us set by Apollo 13.
For NASA, the key value of Artemis II is not just symbolic but engineering and operational. It will be the first time that Orion's life systems will be operated with humans in deep space: oxygen supply, carbon dioxide removal, water, toilets, communication with the deep space network, tests of survival suits, emergency medical exercises, and a demonstration of a makeshift shelter against strong radiation events such as solar flares. Later in the mission, the astronauts will also experiment with manually flying the spacecraft and visually documenting areas of the moon that have not been observed up close by humans since the Apollo era.
Artemis II is therefore essentially a qualification mission for NASA’s new human infrastructure for the Moon: the launcher, the spacecraft, the ground systems, the operational procedures, and the work of the entire crew. Artemis 1 demonstrated in 2022 that it is possible to send Orion on an unmanned lunar mission. Artemis II is intended to demonstrate that it can also be done with people on board. In terms of the broader plan, this is a key step in NASA’s effort to establish a long-term presence on the Moon in preparation for future manned missions to Mars.
Even if tonight's launch is postponed, the current window is not the only opportunity. NASA has already announced additional launch opportunities in the coming days, at least until April 6. So, even in the event of a delay due to weather or a technical issue, the entire operation remains alive and well, and the anticipation for the first manned flight around the moon in the Artemis era will continue.
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