NASA’s Artemis II mission should be launching sometime between April 1 and April 6, 2024. As we prepare and wait for the Artemis I launch, it’s hard to overstate this event. This relatively short mission — expected to be around ten days — is packed with science. It would be the first crewed flight of NASA’s Space Launch System (SLS) rocket and the Orion space capsule. This mission will send astronauts farther into space than any human has gone before. It’s the groundwork for more exciting lunar exploration to come!
The Artemis II crew will consist of four astronauts, including Jeremy Hansen from the Canadian Space Agency. Hansen will become the first Canadian to make a flight to the Moon. The new mission aims to do a flyby of the moon. This historic and thrilling mission sets the stage for humanity to return to the moon’s surface, a milestone not achieved since NASA’s Apollo missions in the 1960s and 70s.
In Artemis II, the crew will live and work in approximately nine cubic meters of crew living space. This means they’ll be stuck for ten days in a hermetically sealed bubble. Along the way, they will serve as medical test subjects, beaming back vital data and imagery from deep space. The mission’s primary objectives include testing the Orion spacecraft’s life-support, propulsion, power, and navigation systems.
The crew module will jettison in-flight. With the help of the SLS, this separation enables the astronauts’ path to extend to over 64,000 kilometers past the Moon. This maneuver is meant to really test Orion under a lot of new and different conditions in deep space. The mission will feature a primary engine fire that pushes the spacecraft on its trajectory to the Moon. This will allow an in-depth assessment of its systems in severe operating environments.
After the end of the mission, the crew will re-enter and return to Earth, splashing down together in the Pacific Ocean. This important time will give us more details on how well the spacecraft is performing and what it can do operationally.