Here’s everything you need to know about Nasa’s Artemis II mission to the moon
In only a few days, humanity will be reunited with the moon for the first time in 53 years.
Artemis II is a NASA mission that will send astronauts near our cosmic neighbour.
They will do a lap around the moon before splashing down in the Pacific Ocean after 10 days.
Here’s everything you need to know about the historic mission, including the expected launch date and who the four astronauts are.
When will the Artemis II rocket launch?
It was originally slated for February but the planned launch date will be ‘no earlier’ than next Wednesday (April 1).
The mission has been delayed two times following tests that involved rolling a rocket the size of London’s Big Ben out into the open.
The first dress rehearsal saw the team fill the fuel tanks of the rocket to see if any issues occurred – one did, a hydrogen leak, forcing the mission to be pushed back a month.
Space officials completed a dress rehearsal later in February but identified a problem with the craft’s helium flow, the gas used to make propellant.
While both sound like bad things, space officials want hiccups to happen, says Libby Jackson, who worked in Mission Control for a module on the International Space Station.
Jackson, now head of space at the London Science Museum, tells Metro that test flights are exactly that – test flights.
‘NASA are just taking their time, and they have to get everything right, and it will launch when it’s ready,’ she says.
‘Anyone who works in the business and until you have got all the way down to zero,’ she says of the 10-second launch countdown, ‘it might not happen.’
What is Artemis?
Artemis, NASA’s return-to-the-moon programme, has been plagued by delays, technical hiccups and budget cuts for years.
This has all but denied generations of astronauts their chance at walking where Neil Armstrong once did in 1969.
The last time humans were casually strolling – or moonwalking, we suppose – on the moon was for the 1972 Apollo 17 mission.
Donald Trump made bringing American space boots back to the lunar surface a goal during his first administration, signing Artemis in 2017.
Space officials were tasked with working with commercial companies like Elon Musk’s SpaceX to build a lunar-orbiting Gateway outpost.
The project’s first mission, known as Artemis I, involved an uncrewed Orion capsule doing a 1.3 million-mile lap around the moon in 2022.
Unlike the Apollo missions, the second Artemis mission won’t actually land on the moon.
Nevertheless, it will be the first to leave Low Earth Orbit (LEO) in 53 years.
It will also be the first time that astronauts launch on top of NASA’s giant Space Launch System rocket and then swing around the Moon inside the Orion crew capsule.
This equipment was one of the main reasons Artemis II was postponed by more than a year, with NASA citing issues with Orion’s life support system.
Where will Artemis II go?
Who are the Artemis II astronauts?
The Artemis II crew will consist of three NASA astronauts – Reid Wiseman, Victor Glover and Christina Koch – and one Canadian, Jeremy Hansen.
They’ll spend 10 days cooped up in a spacecraft roughly the same size as a minivan.
The team will test ‘critical systems and procedures for living and working inside their spacecraft’, including spacesuits and, of course, using a cosmic toilet, NASA said on X on Wednesday.
When is Artemis III scheduled to land on the moon?
While the ongoing Artemis mission does not involve humans traipsing on the surface of the moon, plans are already underway for a lunar landing.
The Artemis III mission is expected to launch no earlier than mid-2027, as development of the Starship is still well underway.
China, meanwhile, plans to do the same by 2030 – complete with building a nuclear reactor to power the country’s research outpost.
What does becoming an astronaut involve?
A career as an astronaut doesn’t just involve handing over a CV and cover letter to NASA.
Meganne Christian, a reserve astronaut with the European Space Agency, told Metro that spacefarers have to undergo rather oddly specific training.
‘There’s particular training for sleeping. When you have to sleep on a space station, you put yourself in a sleeping bag that’s stuck on your quarters,’ she said.
‘You just end up floating there – once you get used to it, you apparently get a really, really good night’s sleep.’
There’s even a dedicated programme to boldly go… to the toilet in space.
Your average Earthly toilet makes the most of gravity to dispose of waste, yet astronauts don’t have such a luxury up in the stars.
This means waste could freely float around the place, not only becoming an unhygienic eyesore, but also a threat to sensitive equipment.
‘It’s something you do closer to the mission,’ Christian said. ‘There is training involved as you need to be able to maintain it and fix it if something goes wrong.
‘But also just using the toilet, because it is a little different and you have to make sure you… align yourself very well.’
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