Artemis II mission overview: Around the Moon and back

More than 50 years after astronauts last flew to the Moon, NASA’s Artemis II mission is poised to send a crew on a lunar flyby, opening a new era in human spaceflight.

The mission is due to lift off from Florida tonight.

The launch window is set to open at 6.24pm (11.24pm Irish time).

Here is what to know about the closely watched flight that is expected to begin a fresh chapter in space exploration.

The goal

The programme is designed to put Americans back on the Moon, build a lasting presence there and lay the groundwork for eventual journeys to Mars.

This mission is expected to last about ten days and will be the first Artemis flight to carry astronauts.

It comes after Artemis I in 2022, when an uncrewed spacecraft travelled around the Moon.

NASA now wants to confirm that both the spacecraft and rocket perform as required before attempting a lunar landing, a landmark currently slated for the Artemis IV mission in 2028.

Unlike the Apollo programme, the US effort that first landed humans on the Moon in 1969, NASA is this time working alongside private companies and international partners, particularly in Europe.

Among them are SpaceX and Blue Origin, competing firms founded by billionaires Elon Musk and Jeff Bezos, which have been assigned the job of developing lunar landers.

The team

Four astronauts – three from the United States and one from Canada – will make the journey on this headline mission.

Commanding the flight is Reid Wiseman, a 50-year-old former naval aviator and test pilot who also served as deputy chief of NASA’s astronaut office.

Victor Glover, 49, another US Navy veteran, will pilot the spacecraft and will also become the first black man – and the first non-white person – to travel to the Moon.

Engineer Christina Koch, 47, will become the first woman to take part in a lunar mission.

Canadian astronaut Jeremy Hansen, a 50-year-old former fighter pilot, is set to become the first non-American to fly around the Moon.

The countdown

The crew will travel in the Orion spacecraft, mounted on top of NASA’s powerful SLS rocket.

The orange-and-white launcher rises 98 meters high, making it about ten meters shorter than the Saturn V rocket used during the Apollo era.

It is scheduled to blast off from the Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral, Florida.

The flight path must be executed with extreme precision and is possible only within narrowly defined launch periods.

The trajectory

After launch, the crew will not head straight for the Moon but will first enter orbit around Earth.

During that phase, the astronauts will carry out a series of checks to confirm the spacecraft’s reliability and safety – it has never before flown with humans on board – before moving farther from Earth.

They will also test Orion’s manual flying capabilities in docking simulations.

If those trials go to plan, Orion will then fire its engines to leave Earth’s orbit and begin the trip to the Moon.

Over the following days, the astronauts will conduct further tests and experiments while in transit.

When they arrive, they will pass over the Moon’s far side.

At that point, communications with Earth will be cut off: the four astronauts are expected to become the humans who have travelled farther from Earth than anyone before them, surpassing the Apollo 13 record.

Their observations are expected to help NASA select a landing site for Artemis IV, which is planned to head to the Moon’s south pole, where no human has ever gone.

The return

Artemis II will then enter a so-called “free-return” trajectory, using the Moon’s gravity to swing the spacecraft back toward Earth without propulsion.

That leg of the mission is expected to last about three or four days and will culminate in atmospheric re-entry – one of the most sensitive stages of the flight.

During Artemis I, NASA said in a technical report that the spacecraft’s heat shield wore away in unexpected ways.

The agency has since modified the spacecraft’s path so the angle of re-entry into the atmosphere should be slightly less severe for the shield.

Once through that phase, parachutes will slow the capsule before it splashes down in the Pacific Ocean off the coast of California.

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