NASA astronauts are ready to take off this Wednesday (1st) on a 10-day journey that will launch them on a slingshot trajectory around the Moon, marking humanity’s return to the lunar neighborhood for the first time in more than half a century.
The Orion capsule, built by Lockheed Martin and installed on top of the Space Launch System (SLS) rocket, manufactured by Boeing, is scheduled to be launched at 6:24 pm local time (7:24 pm Brasília time) from the Kennedy Space Center in Florida.
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The mission is a crucial dress rehearsal in space for the delayed SLS rocket and Orion capsule, and represents the biggest milestone yet in NASA’s multi-year Artemis campaign to return humans to the lunar surface as early as 2028.
If the mission launches on schedule, the four-person crew will travel further into space than anyone else in history.
The Artemis voyages will attempt to repeat, and then surpass, feats achieved during the historic Apollo program, which took Neil Armstrong and 11 other men to the lunar surface in the 1960s and 1970s.
With the Artemis program — named after Apollo’s twin goddess — NASA intends to remain on the Moon permanently. President Donald Trump’s appointed agency administrator, Jared Isaacman, has unveiled a $30 billion, decade-long plan to set up a lunar base where astronauts can live and work.
Isaacman also accelerated a significant redesign of the mission as a whole, including the addition of a test in 2027 that will send a crew to dock with one of the lunar landing modules under construction by Elon Musk’s SpaceX and Jeff Bezos’ Blue Origin.
“The United States will never give up the Moon again,” Isaacman said earlier this month when presenting plans for the lunar base.
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The crew will spend about four days traveling to the vicinity of the Moon, where they will make a pass through the far side — a point of view that is never seen from Earth. They are scheduled to fly over the lunar surface on April 6.
If everything goes according to plan, the trajectory will take the spacecraft only about 6,618 kilometers from the Moon at its closest approach, with the star appearing the size of a basketball held at arm’s length, in the capsule’s window.
In command of the Artemis II mission, this Wednesday, is NASA astronaut Reid Wiseman, a 27-year Navy veteran and former head of the agency’s astronaut office. Flying with him are NASA astronauts Victor Glover, mission pilot, and Christina Koch, mission specialist who participated in the first all-female spacewalk. They join Canadian astronaut Jeremy Hansen, who will travel to space for the first time.
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About three and a half hours after launch, Glover will maneuver Orion to approach a portion of the SLS rocket while in orbit, demonstrating the ability to accurately approach another spacecraft. The same approach technique could be used, in the future, to attach Orion to lunar landing modules that will take astronauts to the surface of the Moon.
On the second day of flight, the Orion spacecraft will fire its main engine, sending the crew en route to the Moon.
The United States is racing to return to the Moon before China sends its own astronauts there for the first time — a goal Beijing has set for before the end of this decade.
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Several American politicians critical of China, including Senator Ted Cruz of Texas, have presented the Artemis program as a race for a strategic position in space, sometimes described as the ultimate “high point” in the event of war.
China has not yet sent people to the lunar surface, but it has already achieved several feats, including the only landings ever carried out on the far side of the Moon. The country is also leading a project to build an international research station near the lunar south pole.
The Artemis II mission stands out for a series of “firsts”. Koch will be the first woman to fly near the Moon, while Glover will be the first black astronaut to do the same. Hansen will also become the first Canadian to fly to the Moon.
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The mission marks only the second flight of the SLS rocket, which has suffered years of schedule delays. The rocket and Orion faced several postponements and budget overruns, which pushed the entire Artemis program forward.
“Manned space exploration has been at the core of NASA itself since the days of Apollo, and also of the self-image of a large part of the agency,” said Casey Dreier, director of space policy at the Planetary Society, a space exploration advocacy organization.
After the NASA crew flies over the Moon, gravity will pull the spacecraft back to Earth.
On the tenth day of the mission, the capsule will re-enter the planet’s atmosphere and descend under parachute, landing in the Pacific Ocean.
A rescue ship and a team of NASA and US Navy divers will meet the capsule to remove the crew from the water.
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