NASA’s Artemis II mission—currently scheduled for launch in early April 2024—will be a groundbreaking mission for human spaceflight. This mission will be the first crewed flight of NASA’s Space Launch System (SLS) rocket and the Orion space capsule. In only ten days from now, the crew will travel further into space than any astronauts have done before. This mission will establish the groundwork for aspiring lunar landers to follow.
With Artemis II, we’ll set the stage for human exploration of the Moon. This endeavor would be truly historic—the first of its kind since the Apollo missions of the 1960s and 70s. This hugely ambitious OGA initiative would include a lunar flyby and a resulting figure-of-8 shaped orbit around the moon. The six-person crew will spend this time testing the Orion spacecraft’s capabilities, including its life-support, propulsion, power, and navigation systems.
Four astronauts will have their day-to-day in the Orion capsule. They’ll be working within a postage-stamp sized space of just nine cubic meters. They’ll be testing out how to steer and align the spacecraft for future landings on the Moon. They’ll be dealing with the complications of coming home through Earth’s atmosphere. That return journey would end with a spectacular splashdown. It will occur in the Pacific Ocean off the west coast of the continental United States.
Artemis II is a key step in preparing for our next big missions. It will have astronauts from a far greater diversity of nations. For the first time, European astronauts will be heading to the Moon on Artemis missions. At the same time, Japan has managed to get its own seats on future flights. This partnership emphasizes NASA’s dedication to encouraging international cooperation for space exploration.
The first launch window for Artemis II opens on those days, with April 1, 3, 4, 5, and 6 all being possible dates. In February, an earlier target date was cancelled. A pre-launch check found a leak from the highly toxic, volatile rocket fuel hydrogen which has led to continuing inspections of the SLS rocket’s complex systems.