After years of postponements and close to $100 billion in spending, NASA is finally counting down to its first attempt to send astronauts around the moon since Apollo 17 in 1972.
The 10-day Artemis 2 mission is set to begin today with the liftoff of NASA’s Space Launch System rocket from NASA’s historic Launch Complex 39B at Kennedy Space Center in Florida. The two-hour launch window opens at 6:24 p.m. ET (3:24 p.m. PT), and NASA is streaming live mission coverage of the countdown on two different YouTube channels.
NASA has fueled up the 322-foot-tall SLS rocket with liquid hydrogen and oxygen, and there’s an 80% chance of acceptable weather for launch. Rain showers are the main concern.
Artemis 2 is the first crewed test flight in a series leading up to a moon landing that’s currently scheduled for 2028. It follows Artemis 1, which sent a crewless Orion space capsule around the moon in 2022. This time, four astronauts will be riding inside Orion: NASA mission commander Reid Wiseman, NASA astronauts Christina Koch and Victor Glover, and Canadian astronaut Jeremy Hansen. Koch will be the first woman to go beyond Earth orbit, and Hansen will be the first non-American to do so.
Although the astronauts won’t be landing on the lunar surface, they’ll follow a figure-8 trajectory that will send them 4,700 miles beyond the far side of the moon and make them the farthest-flung travelers in human history.
Last week, NASA Administrator Jared Isaacman laid out a plan for establishing a permanent base on the moon and preparing for even farther trips into the solar system. On the eve of the launch, Isaacman played up the significance of Artemis 2 in that plan. “The next era of exploration begins,” he said in a post to X.
Senior test director Jeff Spaulding, a veteran of the space shuttle program, said he was looking forward to the mission. “I’m excited about going to the moon,” he told reporters. “I’m excited about establishing a presence there. It’s something that I have had a desire for, for a great many years — and then to get humans out to Mars as well.”
The health of the Artemis 2 astronauts will be monitored during the flight to gauge the effects of deep-space travel. The crew will also assess Orion’s performance and practice in-flight safety procedures. For example, they’ll rehearse the protocol for taking shelter from radiation storms that might flare up during trips beyond Earth’s protective magnetosphere. They’ll also participate in experiments and make observations of the moon’s far side.
“They’re going to be able to see the whole moon as a lunar disk on the lunar far side,” Marie Henderson, lunar science deputy lead for the Artemis 2 mission, said in a NASA video. “So, that’s a brand-new, unique perspective that humans haven’t been able to look at before.”
At the end of the trip, the crew and their Orion capsule are due to splash down in the Pacific Ocean off the California coast. They’ll be brought to a recovery ship for medical checkouts and their return to shore, following a routine that became familiar during the Apollo era.
Artemis 2 is about the history of America’s space program as well as its future. The round-the-moon mission profile matches that of Apollo 8, which served as a unifying event for a nation riven by the social tumult of the time. That mission’s commander, Frank Borman, reported receiving a telegram reading, “Congratulations to the crew of Apollo 8. You saved 1968.” Notably, less than a third of Americans living today were around when Apollo 8 flew.
The main motivation for the Apollo program was America’s superpower competition with the Soviet Union, and today, the geopolitical stakes are similarly high. NASA and the White House are seeking to jump-start progress on Artemis in part because China is targeting a crewed moon landing by 2030.
Sen. Maria Cantwell, D-Wash., said this week during a visit to Seattle-area suppliers for the Artemis program that it’s important for America to get to the moon first. “We’re trying to get the best real estate on the moon,” she said. “So, to do that, you’ve got to get up there to claim it.”
The course of the Artemis program, which is named after the goddess of the moon and the twin sister of Apollo in Greek mythology, hasn’t always run smooth. When the program was given its name in 2019, the Artemis 2 mission was planned for 2022 or 2023, with the moon landing scheduled for 2024. The cost of the program has been estimated at $93 billion through 2025, with each Artemis launch costing $4.1 billion.
Artemis 2’s launch team ran into several challenges during this year’s preparations for launch. Liftoff was initially scheduled for February, but a liquid hydrogen leak forced NASA to reset the launch for March. The launch date was reset again when a helium pressurization problem required a rocket rollback for repairs. The SLS was brought back out to the pad on March 20, and preparations went smoothly since then.
Several companies with a presence in the Seattle area are banking on Artemis’ success. For example, a facility in Redmond operated by L3Harris (previously known as Aerojet Rocketdyne) builds thrusters for the Orion spacecraft and is already working ahead on the Artemis 8 mission.
Boeing is the lead contractor for the SLS rocket’s core stage. Karman Space & Defense in Mukilteo provides hatch release mechanisms and parachute deployment hardware for Orion. And Jeff Bezos’ Blue Origin space venture, based in Kent, is developing a Blue Moon lander that future Artemis crews could ride to the lunar surface.
Blue Origin’s New Glenn rocket is expected to send an uncrewed cargo version of its lander to the moon sometime in the next few months.
Read more: Artemis 2 gets a push from Pacific Northwest tech
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