DIRECT
The Artemis II mission begins this Wednesday, with four astronauts on board, marking the return of manned flights to the Moon’s orbit more than 50 years after the historic missions of the Apollo Program. The launch is scheduled for shortly after 11:20 pm (mainland Portugal time).
The four astronauts on the Artemis II mission begin, this Wednesday, what will be the first manned mission to the Moon in more than 50 years. Aboard the Space Launch System (SLS) rocket, responsible for placing the Orion capsule into orbit, there will be a crew made up of North American commander Reid Wiseman, pilot Victor Glover and specialist Christina Koch, as well as Canadian Jeremy Hansen.
The launch is scheduled for shortly after 23h20 (mainland Portugal time) and the crew will continue on a journey of approximately 10 diasduring which it will orbiter of Lua before returning to Earth, scheduled to land off the coast of California in the Pacific Ocean.
More than half a century later, history repeats itself in the same place where the Apollo 17 mission departed in 1972.
The mission Artemis II will be the first of “Artemis Program” transporting astronauts since the end of the “Apollo Program”which took the first humans to the Moon between 1969 and 1972. Contrary to what happened in these historic missions, this stage does not foresee a lunar landing.
Mission suffered delays and technical problems
Before that, a which also led to the postponement of the launch.
