Artemis II to Launch New Era in Human Presence Beyond Earth

November 20, 2023

*This illustration shows NASA’s Orion spacecraft as it begins its four-day journey back to Earth. Photo credit: NASA*

By Bob Granath

In September of 2025, NASA will renew human exploration beyond Earth as four astronauts travel to the Moon for the first time in more than 50 years. Aboard an Orion spacecraft, four astronauts will loop beyond the lunar surface venturing farther away than humans ever traveled before. Plans call for the Artemis II flight test to pave the way for landing the first woman and the first person of color on the Moon for long-term presence for science and exploration.

Artemis II crewmembers, from the left, Reid Wiseman, Victor Glover, Christina Koch and Jeremy Hansen stand in the white room on the crew access arm of the mobile launcher at Launch Complex 39B as part of an integrated ground systems test at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center on Sept. 20, 2023. Photo credit: NASA/Frank Michaux

A year ago, the Artemis I mission was the first integrated flight test of NASA’s Orion spacecraft and Space Launch System (SLS) rocket along with its supporting ground systems. After the record-breaking mission traveling more than 1.4 million miles on a path around the Moon, NASA began planning for the first trip by astronauts there since Apollo 17 in December of 1972.

On April 3, 2023, NASA Administrator Bill Nelson announced the names of the astronauts who will make the flight during a ceremony at Ellington Field near NASA’s Johnson Space Center in Houston.

Weeks of testing at the Kennedy Space Center’s Launch Complex 39B paid off with a flawless liftoff of NASA’s Space Launch System rocket and Orion spacecraft on Nov. 16, 2022. Photo credit: SpaceAgeChronicle.com/Bob Granath

“The Artemis II crew represents thousands of people working tirelessly to bring us to the stars. This is their crew, this is our crew, this is humanity’s crew,” he said. “NASA astronauts Reid Wiseman, Victor Glover, and Christina Hammock Koch, along with CSA (Canadian Space Agency) astronaut Jeremy Hansen, each has their own story. Together, we are ushering in a new era of exploration for a new generation of star sailors and dreamers – the Artemis Generation.”

The crew will lift off from NASA’s Kennedy Space Center atop NASA’s mega-rocket, the powerful Space Launch System that generates 8.8 million pounds of thrust. According to Mike Sarafin, NASA’s Artemis mission manager, the 10-day mission will confirm all of the spacecraft’s systems operate as designed with crew aboard while traveling in deep space.

“The unique Artemis II mission profile will build upon the uncrewed Artemis I flight test by demonstrating a broad range of SLS and Orion capabilities needed on deep space missions,” he said. “This mission will prove Orion’s critical life support systems are ready to sustain our astronauts on longer duration missions ahead and allow the crew to practice operations essential to the success of Artemis III.”

Planned for 2025, Artemis III will land on the Moon making history by pioneering a sustained presence at a region near the lunar South Pole. Spacecraft orbiting the lunar surface have discovered there are significant sources of water ice at that location, providing valuable resources such as water that can be converted to oxygen and fuel.

Pioneering vs. Exploration

In 2016, Kennedy’s then Center Director, Bob Cabana, explained that NASA is moving to a new era in space travel.

“It was an incredible accomplishment when we went to the Moon,” said Cabana who now is the agency’s associate administrator. “We stayed for a couple of days and took some rocks home. We explored.”

He noted that explorers leave a nice, safe environment. They go off to an extreme environment for a short period of time, gather information and return.

*NASA Associate Administrator Bob Cabana. Photo credit: NASA/Kim Shiflett*

“But now we want to be pioneers,” he said. “As pioneers, we will create a sustained human presence in an ever more extreme environment.”

In the agency’s first half-century, the focus was on quick trips to space for hours, then days followed by weeks, primarily close to Earth and then the Moon, just a few travel days away.

Since November of 2000, NASA and its global partners have participated in the next phase by establishing a permanent presence in low-Earth orbit aboard the International Space Station where astronauts are learning to live and work in space for longer periods.

The return to the Moon will fulfill Apollo 17 commander Gene Cernan’s hope of transitioning human exploration of the lunar surface begun during the late 1960s and early 1970s to pioneering in the coming years. Cernan took the final Apollo steps on the Moon in December 1972.

“As I take man’s last step from the surface, back home for some time to come . . . I’d like to just say what I believe history will record that America’s challenge of today has forged man’s destiny of tomorrow,” he said. “As we leave the Moon at Taurus–Littrow, we leave as we came and, God willing, as we shall return, with peace and hope for all mankind.”

That return effort begins with the Artemis II crew.

Reid Wiseman

A native of Baltimore, Wiseman is a U.S. Navy captain and a veteran of a mission to the International Space Station. He earned a bachelor’s degree in computer and systems engineering from the Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in Troy, New York in 1997, a master’s in systems engineering from Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore in 2006 and a certificate of space systems from the U.S. Naval Postgraduate School in 2008.

Wiseman was commissioned through the Reserve Officers’ Training Corps following graduation from Rensselaer after which he reported to Pensacola, Florida, for flight training. He became a Naval Aviator in 1999 and began flying the F‑14 Tomcat fighter aircraft at Naval Air Station Oceana, Virginia. He was selected as a NASA astronaut in June 2009. On May 29, 2014, Wiseman launched with two Russian cosmonauts aboard Soyuz TMA-13M from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan for a six-month stay aboard the space station.

Victor Glover

Glover also is a U.S. Navy captain who spent six months aboard the International Space Station. Born in Pomona, California, Glover was awarded a bachelor’s degree in general engineering from the California Polytechnic State University in San Luis Obispo, California in 1999. He went on to earn a master’s in flight test engineering at the Edwards Air Force Base Air University in 2007, a masters in systems engineering at the Naval Postgraduate School in 2009 and a master’s in military operational art and science from the Air University in Montgomery, Alabama in 2010.

Glover began preflight training in Pensacola, and completed his advanced flight training in Kingsville, Texas, becoming a Naval aviator in 2001, flying the F/A‐18C Hornet fighter jet. During his career, he flew more than 40 other aircraft with over 400 aircraft carrier landings and 24 combat missions. In 2012, Glover was chosen for a Legislative Fellowship assigned to the office of U.S. Senator John McCain (R-Ariz.). Glover was selected as an astronaut in 2013 and was part of the SpaceX Crew-1 mission to the space station in 2020 and 2021 during which he participated in four spacewalks.

Christina Koch

Koch served as flight engineer on the International Space Station for Expedition 59, 60 and 61 and in doing so, set a record for the longest single spaceflight by a woman, spending almost a year in space. She was born in Grand Rapids, Michigan, but grew up in Jacksonville, North Carolina. She studied at North Carolina State University in Raleigh, North Carolina, where she earned a bachelor’s degree in electrical engineering in 2001, a bachelor’s in physics and a master’s in electrical engineering in 2002.

Before becoming a NASA astronaut in the group that included Glover in 2013, Koch was an electrical engineer at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center Laboratory for High Energy Astrophysics. In that job, she worked in space science instrument development and remote scientific field engineering. She also served as station chief for the National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration in American Samoa.

After becoming an astronaut, Koch launched in March 2019 from the Baikonur Cosmodrome on the Soyuz MS-12 spacecraft. She returned to Earth with a total of 328 days in space. The mission aboard the International Space Station included the first all-female spacewalk on Oct. 18, 2019. She and Jessica Meir exited the orbiting laboratory’s airlock to replace a power controller.

Jeremy Hansen

Artemis II will be his first trip into space for Hansen who was born in London, Ontario, Canada. He was raised on a farm near Ailsa Craig, Ontario, until moving to Ingersoll for his high school years. At the age of 12, Hansen joined a Royal Canadian Air Cadet Squadron and went on to earn his private pilot license at the age of 17. This training led to his acceptance to Royal Military College Saint-Jean in Saint-Jean-sur-Richelieu, Quebec.

Hansen was awarded a bachelor’s degree in space science in 1999 and a master’s in physics in 2000, with a research focus on Wide Field of View Satellite Tracking from the Royal Military College of Canada in Kingston, Ontario. Hansen piloted the CF-18 fighter jet as a Royal Canadian Air Force colonel. He was selected by the Canadian Space Agency as an astronaut in 2009.

The four Artemis II astronauts will travel 4,600 miles beyond the far side of the Moon. They will see the Earth and the Moon, with the lunar landscape in the foreground and the Earth nearly a quarter-million miles away. Photo credit: NASA/Liam Yanulis

From the Earth to the Moon

The Artemis II mission’s flight profile is designed to be a “hybrid free return trajectory.” Once the Orion spacecraft reaches orbit around the Earth, the spacecraft will perform multiple maneuvers to raise its orbit and eventually place the crew on a lunar free return trajectory in which their home planet’s gravity will pull Orion back after flying by the Moon.

Inside the Neil Armstrong Operations and Checkout Building at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center, Artemis II crewmembers check out their Orion crew module on Aug. 8, 2023. From left are: Victor Glover, Reid Wiseman, Christina Koch and Jeremy Hansen. The crew module is undergoing acoustic testing ahead of integration with the European Service Module. Photo credit: NASA/Kim Shiflett

A trans-lunar injection firing of the SLS’s interim cryogenic propulsion stage will boost crew on an outbound trip of about four days and around the backside of the Moon where they will ultimately create a figure eight extending over 230,000 miles from Earth before Orion returns.

The four astronauts will travel 4,600 miles beyond the far side of the lunar surface. From this vantage point, they will see the Earth and the Moon, with the lunar landscape in the foreground and the Earth nearly a quarter-million miles away. Instead of requiring propulsion on the return, this fuel-efficient trajectory will utilize the Earth-Moon gravity field, ensuring that Orion will be attracted by the Earth’s gravity for the return.

Following a high-speed, high-temperature re-entry through Earth’s atmosphere, the Artemis II crew will splash down in the Pacific Ocean off the coast of San Diego. U.S. Navy and NASA recovery crews will retrieve the astronaut and their spacecraft for their return home.