After a long delay, NASA’s Orion ship is practically ready for the first human flight to the lunar orbit in more than half a century. American astronauts Reid Wiseman, Victor Glover, Christina Koch and Canadian Jeremy Hansen are the four chosen to see the moon from an unprecedented perspective. What they don’t have yet: a definitive date.
The Artemis II mission flight plan
The first manned mission of the Artemis program is the equivalent of Apollo 8 in the new lunar race. Artemis II is not a mission of alunage, but an overflow of the moon with the crew as a novelty of the system. Its main objective is to validate that the Orion ship and its rocket, the Space Launch System (SLS), are safe to transport astronauts to deep space.
The plan of flight of about 10 days Start with a takeoff from Florida and two laps to Earth. The first orbit will last just 90 minutes. The second, much more elliptical, will be extended for almost 24 hours, leading to the crew at an altitude of more than 74,000 km to test the life support systems before flying to the moon.
With all verified systems, the Orion Ship Service Module, a contribution from the European Space Agency, will turn on its engine for a translunar injection that will boost the crew on a four -day trajectory to the Moon.
The four astronauts will pass to some 7,400 km of the hidden face of the moon, traveling further from the earth than any human being before them. From that point, they will see the moon in the foreground and our planet as a small blue marble to almost 400,000 km away.
Thanks to a “free return” trajectory, the severity of the earth and the moon will be responsible for attracting the Orion ship back home without the need for large motor lit, a trip of another four days that will culminate with a meritorious with parachute in the Pacific Ocean. Along the way, they will beat the highest speed that the human being has ever reached.
Four astronauts waiting since 2023
In April 2023, NASA presented the four astronauts selected for the Artemis II mission to the world. On the part of NASA, a veteran trio will travel that includes Commander Reid Wiseman and the pilot Victor Glover (both with experience at the International Space Station), as well as the Mission Specialist Christina Koch (the woman who holds the longest space flight record).
On the part of the Canadian space agency, which is NASA’s first partner to participate in a manned mission of the Artemis program, the Mission Specialist Jeremy Hansen will go, for whom Artemis II supposes his first trip to space.
When these four astronauts were selected, Artemis II was scheduled by the end of 2024. The objective date is not before April 2026. The main reason for the delay is the thermal shield of the Orion ship, which did not behave in the expected way in its debut mission.
While Artemis I was declared a success, the inspection of the Orion capsule after his return in 2022 revealed something disturbing: the thermal shield had lost great pieces of its protective material. After months of investigation, NASA identified the cause in December 2024: during the reentry, the gases generated within the ablative material of the shield could not escape correctly, accumulating pressure and causing some parts to detach.
Artemis I was a mission without crew, but the phenomenon was not foreseen in the models of their engineers. This problem, together with other technical challenges in the batteries and circuits of the life support, led NASA to readjust the calendar a couple of times, delaying Artemis II to September 2025 and, subsequently, to the current date of April 2026.
Everything is already perfectly rehearsed
Far from being bored at home, the last days have been a frenzy of trials for the four astronauts. In early August, their costumes were wrapped and they entered together in their Orion capsule. Within the ship, already loaded with fuel, they connected to the life support systems and communications, simulating the conditions of the launch day.
A few days later, the Orion capsule was transferred to the assembly building where on August 27 they finished installing the launching abortion systeman escape tower designed to remove the rocket crew in case of emergency.
That type of emergencies is also rehearsed. In June 2025, NASA and the United States Department of Defense made large -scale rescue drills on the Florida coast. Helicopters, rescue paratroopers and recovery equipment practiced how to extract the crew of the capsule in the sea in the worst stage.
In Houston, the mission control center has also released facilities. On August 15, the new Orion Mission Evaluation Chamber was inaugurated, a space where dozens of NASA engineers and its international partners will monitor each data of the ship during the flight. A few days later, they were already doing complete simulations from the new room.
Although the main objective is technical, Artemis II will also be a scientific mission. The crew may See the moon from a unique perspective that nobody has seen before with their own eyes. And that is why he has received intensive geological training to make the most of the overflow.
Although they will not step on the moon, they could be the first humans to see with their own eyes certain regions of the hidden face, such as the Eastern basin. And they have the important task of photographing impact craters and old lava flows, describing textures and colors to help scientists on land to plan the Artemis III mission, the first one that will step on the moon since 1972. If China does not get it before.
Images | POT
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