NASA has announced plans to send astronauts on a ten-day trip around the moon as early as February 2026. It will be the first manned mission to the moon in half a century. This is reported by BBC.
The Artemis II mission will be the second within the Artemis program, which involves landing humans on the moon and establishing a permanent presence on its surface. The crew will consist of four astronauts: Commander Reid Weissman, pilot Victor Glover, Christina Koch from NASA and Jeremy Hansen from the Canadian Space Agency.
Astronauts will not land on the moon, but will fly around it and fly to a record distance of more than 9,200 km from the moon. This will be the first human flight beyond low Earth orbit since the Apollo 17 mission. in 1972.
The purpose of the mission is to test the operation of rocket and space systems, in particular, the super-powerful Space Launch System rocket and the Orion capsule, which will serve as the crew’s home during the trip. During the flight, system checks, approach maneuvers with the second stage of the rocket, as well as medical experiments are planned – in particular, studies of the effects of microgravity and radiation at the cellular level.
After the lunar flyby, the astronauts will begin a four-day journey back to Earth. The most risky phase will be the entry of the Orion capsule into the atmosphere and landing in the Pacific Ocean off the coast of California.
The success of Artemis II will depend on the preparation for Artemis III, the mission that after the Apollo programs will land people on the moon for the first time. However, experts believe that even under the optimal scenario, it is unlikely to be achieved before the middle of 2027. The main difficulty lies in the readiness of SpaceX’s Starship ship, which should deliver astronauts to the lunar surface and return them back.
