The four astronauts just named to the Artemis II mission are the first crew who will test-drive the Orion moonship in space.
The 25-day maiden voyage of the empty spacecraft last November pushed Orion and its propulsion systems beyond what they were designed to do, and NASA deemed the inaugural spaceflight a success, exceeding their performance expectations.
Now they'll see how Orion fares with humans aboard as it loops around the moon. But the crew won't land.
"We're not going to go to the moon right away. We're going to stay in an amazing high orbit, reaching a peak of tens of thousands of miles while we test out all the systems on Orion and even see how it maneuvers in space," said Christina Hammock Koch, one of the astronauts tapped for the mission. "Then, if everything looks good, (NASA's) heading to the moon."
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NASA selected Koch, Reid Wiseman, and Victor Glover, and the Canadian Space Agency chose Jeremy Hansen, for the flight, making them the first people to travel into deep space since the final Apollo mission in 1972. They'll journey 6,400 miles beyond the far side of the moon, and test the ship's life-support systems. Only then will the U.S. space agency feel confident the spacecraft is ready to send astronauts back for a moonwalk.
Testing NASA's spacecraft
Though the crew won't ever leave the spacecraft during their 10-day flight, the four members will hold a place in history as the first space travelers of Artemis, the new space exploration program named after Apollo's goddess twin. It's the beginning of NASA's ambitious plan to send human explorers to Mars by the late 2030s, preparing them for the harsh conditions of another world far less hospitable than Earth.
NASA as an agency is also more mindful today of how the people it selects to explore new realms should represent humankind. Starting with the Artemis 2 crew, NASA has promised that the astronauts will now be diverse and global.
"It isn't just the technology that is changing," said Joe Acaba, NASA's chief of astronauts. "We've also learned that in order to go farther, we have to go together."
On the Artemis II astronauts' journey, they will make two oval-shaped loops around Earth before flying once around the moon. The first orbit will happen quickly, in as little as 1.5 hours, sending the spacecraft out 1,800 miles from the planet. That maneuver, which will happen after NASA's rocket has shed its boosters and core stage, will involve an engine firing from Orion's in-space propulsion system.
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The next orbit will require a final engine burn from the in-space propulsion system to give the astronauts a longer scenic route around the planet. But before completely ditching the rocket's upper stage, the astronauts will use it for steering practice. Though a Houston-based team will control most of the flight, the astronauts will manually pilot the ship for this maneuver — a crucial test of Orion's docking capabilities that will be necessary for the Artemis III mission.
During this test, the crew will use Orion’s cameras and windows to line up the ship with the detached upper stage. NASA says this demonstration will give them key insight into the moonship's handling that can only be gained in space. Then, the ship will swoop 68,000 miles away from Earth on a larger orbit, building up speed for the big push toward the moon.
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"You may often hear people say human spaceflight is a marathon, not a sprint. But we have watched the people that worked so hard to make our mission possible. And I can tell you, it is a series of sprints. That's called a relay race," said Glover, who will serve as pilot for the mission. "We understand our role in that. And when we have the privilege of having that baton, we're going to do our best to run a good race to make you proud."
"We're going to do our best to run a good race to make you proud."
What will Artemis 2 do?
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For the duration of the flight, NASA will observe how the spacecraft manages the astronauts' air supply, removing carbon dioxide and water vapor as they breathe, especially during periods when they exercise. The team will also check Orion's communication and navigation using the Deep Space Network(opens in a new tab), a system of three enormous radio dish arrays on Earth, when it flies beyond the range of GPS and tracking satellites.
Then, Orion will use its service module for one last push to get on a moonbound trajectory. Orion will make a single lunar flyby on the mission. It'll take the astronauts about four days to arrive.
But there won't be a lot of down time. The astronauts will be busy with several emergency drills, including an important test of its so-called "radiation shelter(opens in a new tab)," which is little more than rearranging bags of their food and supplies around a storage area in the ship. The shelter is meant to reduce the crew's exposure to harmful penetrating space radiation during a catastrophic event, like a solar flare, that could increase their cancer risk.
To protect themselves, astronauts will move to the central part of the crew module and create a shelter using the stowage bags available on board.
As they pass around the far side of the moon, the Artemis II crew will get an incomparable view from Orion's windows of the moon in the foreground and Earth some 250,000 miles behind it. Then, they'll spend another four days coming home, using Earth's gravity to reel them back without any extra engine power.
One thing that won't change from Artemis I, the uncrewed precursor flight that successfully launched and returned to Earth in December 2022, is the wild ride back. NASA plans to bring Orion home with a so-called "skip entry" into Earth's atmosphere. It'll be the first time the U.S. space agency has ever tried the technique with humans. The maneuver involves the moonship traveling at an unfathomably high speed and enduring scorching temperatures.
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Mission leaders say the advantage is breaking up the intense G-force loads — the heavy feeling pushing against a body during extreme acceleration — into two smaller events rather than one severe episode. NASA believes the skip entry will keep Artemis astronauts who would experience those effects safer. When humans are subjected to forces much greater than normal gravity, their hearts are put under tremendous stress, causing dizziness and sometimes blackouts.
When Orion plunges toward Earth, it will be traveling 24,500 mph, heating up to 5,000 degrees Fahrenheit, before slowing down to 20 mph as it hits the Pacific Ocean.
"Am I excited?" Koch said Monday. "Absolutely."
