NASA on Friday unveiled the new Artemis II Orion spacecraft and two Space Launch System solid rocket boosters that will carry astronauts on the first crewed Artemis mission around the moon.
A four-astronaut mission to orbit the moon is scheduled to launch in April 2026. It will be a test flight that will pave the way for landing the first woman and the next man on the moon.
The craft will carry commander Reed Wiseman, pilot Victor Glover, and mission specialists Christina Koch and Jeremy Hansen.
Wiseman, Glover and Koch are NASA astronauts, while Hansen represents the Canadian Space Agency.
In a statement, NASA said: “Astronauts will travel around the Moon on their first flight aboard NASA's Space Launch System (SLS) rocket and Orion spacecraft. Their mission is to confirm that all spacecraft systems function as designed with crew on board in realistic deep space conditions.”
Artemis II is a follow-up to the unmanned Artemis I flight test, according to Artemis mission manager Mike Sarafin.
“This mission will demonstrate that Orion's critical life support systems are ready to support our astronauts on upcoming longer missions and will allow the crew to practice the operations needed to successfully complete Artemis III,” Sarafin said in a statement.
NASA said that during the flyby mission, the Artemis II crew “will pilot the Orion spacecraft and periodically manually control it during its flight around the Moon and back.”
In January, the Artemis mission reached a major milestone in rocket assembly when the right forward segment of the two boosters was completed at Kennedy Space Center in Florida.
The Artemis II forward booster segments consist of three parts: the forward avionics housing skirt, the truncated engine housing, and the nose cone aerodynamic fairing.
The two solid rocket boosters are 177 feet tall.
The Artemis II manned lunar flyby mission was originally scheduled to launch in September this year, but has now been rescheduled for April 2026.
The launch of the Artemis III manned lunar landing craft is scheduled for mid-2027.
Sourse: www.upi.com
