In 1969, astronaut Neil Armstrong was the first man to take one small step for
man, and a giant leap for mankind as he left his space module to place his
foot onto the lunar surface of the Moon. On a hot July day, many sat glued to
their televisions to watch Armstrong and the rest of the crew blast off into the
great unknown. The last mission where a man set foot on the moon was
Apollo 17, which took place between December 7 and December 19, 1972.
Eugene Cernan was the last human to leave a footprint on the surface of the
moon, but with the launching of Artemis II on April 1, 2026 the groundwork is
being done for a planned touchdown in 2028.
Artemis II is a flight test, which is the initial phase needed to once again put
humans on the Moon. This ten-day mission sends four astronauts on a free-return trajectory around the Moon and back to Earth. A free-return means that no propulsion is used, but rather the gravity between the Earth and the Moon sling-shots the spaceship back toward the Earth.
This mission includes many firsts. This is the first use of the Orion spacecraft, Victor Glover is the first person of color to travel beyond a low Earth orbit, Christina Koch is the first woman, and Canadian Astronaut Jeremy Hanson is the first non-United States citizen to get this close to the Moon. Another first is that the Artemis II test flight around the Moon made history at 12:56 p.m. CDT on Monday, traveling 248,655 miles from Earth, surpassing the record for human spaceflight’s farthest distance previously set by the Apollo 13 mission in 1970. At its farthest point, the crew inside the Orion spacecraft will have traveled about 252,756 miles, before looping back toward our home planet, setting the new record for human spaceflight.
The Artemis II astronauts are more than halfway through their mission. The crew is scheduled to splash down off the coast of San Diego at approximately 8:07 p.m. EDT (5:07 p.m. PDT) on Friday, April 10. Following splashdown, recovery teams will retrieve the crew members using helicopters and deliver them to the USS John P. Murtha. Once aboard, the astronauts will undergo post-flight medical evaluations in the ship’s medical bay before traveling back to shore to meet with an aircraft bound for NASA Johnson.
You can follow the mission via the Artemis Real-time Orbit Website (AROW). It can be reached through NASA’s website at ( www.nasa.gov/trackartemis ) or on the app at (www.nasa.gov/nasa-app).
According to the NASA website, “Under the Artemis program, NASA will send Artemis astronauts on increasingly challenging missions to explore more of the Moon for scientific discovery, economic benefits, and to build on our foundation for the first crewed missions to Mars.”
“Artemis II is the start of something bigger than any one mission. It marks our return to the Moon, not just to visit, but to eventually stay on our Moon Base, and lays the foundation for the next giant leaps ahead,” said NASA Administrator Jared Isaacman in a press release.
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