NASA prepares for first crewed lunar mission in half a century

NASA is preparing to send four astronauts around the moon as soon as this evening, a 10-day mission that would rank as the boldest US human spaceflight effort in decades and a pivotal move in the race to return astronauts to the lunar surface before China mounts its first crewed landing.

Mission managers on Monday gave a “go” for launch of Artemis II, clearing NASA’s 98m (322-foot) Space Launch System rocket and its Orion crew capsule for liftoff as early as 6.24 p.m. (11.30pm Irish time) on Wednesday.

The rocket is due to rise from NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida, from a launch pad next to the one used by the last moon-bound crews of the Apollo era more than 50 years ago.

Flying aboard Artemis II are NASA astronauts Christina Koch, Victor Glover and Reid Wiseman, along with Canadian astronaut Jeremy Hansen, who arrived in Florida from Houston on Friday.

In the lead-up to launch, the crew has been in quarantine for two weeks and spent part of the weekend with their families at the Kennedy Space Center beach house, where astronauts traditionally stay before heading into space.

NASA this morning began loading the SLS core stage with 733,000 gallons of super-cooled propellant for the rocket’s four RS-25 engines. Built by Aerojet Rocketdyne, the pickup truck-sized engines previously powered NASA’s Space Shuttle fleet for decades.

“Everything is going very well right now,” assistant launch director Jeremy Graeber said as fueling operations on the SLS core stage got under way.

NASA’s Artemis II Space Launch System rocket

Forecasters said conditions looked supportive of an on-time launch, with just a 20% chance of weather deteriorating during the agency’s two-hour launch window.

Should worsening weather force a scrub, NASA could make another attempt as soon as Friday and continue trying through 6 April. If those windows are missed, the next opportunity would not come until 30 April.

“Certainly all indications are right now, we are in excellent, excellent shape as we get into count,” launch director Charlie Blackwell-Thompson told reporters on Monday.

The mission had first been targeted for as early as 6 February, then 6 March, before a stubborn hydrogen leak forced NASA to return the rocket to its vehicle assembly building for closer inspection.

Farthest trip in history

Artemis II is set to carry its crew on a looping, nearly 10-day voyage around the moon and back, taking them about 406,000 km into space – farther than any humans have ever traveled.

The standing record for the most distant human spaceflight, roughly 248,000 miles, belongs to the three-man Apollo 13 crew in 1970. That mission was thrown into crisis when an oxygen tank exploded, preventing the astronauts from landing on the moon as intended.

Space enthusiasts gather to watch the launch of Artemis II

No human has ventured beyond Earth’s orbit since the last Apollo mission in 1972.

NASA’s first Artemis mission flew without a crew in 2022, sending the gumdrop-shaped Orion spacecraft on a comparable trip around the moon and safely back to Earth.

Artemis II will push Orion and the SLS rocket much harder. During the mission, the astronauts will evaluate key life-support systems, crew interfaces and communications. About three hours after launch, they will also manually fly Orion to test its handling and maneuverability, an important safeguard if its automated systems were ever to fail.

Lockheed Martin LMT.N manufactures Orion, while Boeing BA.N and Northrop Grumman NOC.N have spearheaded SLS development since 2010, a programme that has drawn scrutiny for swelling costs estimated at $2 billion to $4 billion per launch.

At the same time, Elon Musk’s SpaceX and Jeff Bezos’ Blue Origin are competing to build the lunar landers NASA plans to use to place astronauts on the moon’s surface.

Artemis II stands as an early but crucial phase of NASA’s multibillion-dollar Artemis programme, which aims to establish a long-term presence at the lunar south pole. The agency is pushing to land its first crew there on Artemis IV by 2028, ahead of China’s target of around 2030.

Artemis III had been expected to deliver NASA’s first astronaut moon landing under the programme, but in February new NASA Administrator Jared Isaacman inserted an additional test mission before that landing attempt.