Around the moon and back in 10 Days

NASA sent four astronauts — three from the United States and one from Canada — on a trip around the moon and back without landing there. This is the first time that anyone would travel this far from Earth since Apollo 17 in 1972.
If Artemis II succeeds, missions that return astronauts to the moon’s surface could follow later in the decade.
Here’s what to know about the mission and the astronauts making the trip.
What’s the Space Launch System rocket?
This is NASA’s big new rocket — the present-day equivalent of the Saturn V used during the Apollo moon landings. It is 322 feet tall and weighs 5.75 million pounds when filled with propellant. Launching from NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida, it is capable of sending about 60,000 pounds of payload to the moon.
The design is a remix of technologies developed in the 1970s for the space shuttles.
NASA led the design of the Space Launch System rocket and the Orion capsule, and it hired the commercial companies SpaceX and Blue Origin to provide the lunar landers for future Artemis missions.
What is the Orion spacecraft?
Four astronauts were selected for the mission in 2023 and have been training for their journey since then. The three NASA astronauts — commander Reid Wiseman, pilot Victor Glover and a mission specialist, Christina Koch — have been to the International Space Station. Glover is set to be the first Black man to travel around the moon, and Koch the first woman. A mission specialist from Canada, Jeremy Hansen, has not yet been to space. Hansen will be the first person who is not a NASA astronaut to make the trip.
Orion is the spacecraft that will carry the astronauts to the moon and back. The top part — the crew module — will return to Earth, splashing down in the Pacific Ocean off San Diego.
The Orion spacecraft has two main sections. During the 10-day mission, the astronauts are to remain inside the crew module. Beneath it sits the service module, a cylindrical piece provided by the European Space Agency, which houses the propulsion, power and life-support systems.
Built by Lockheed Martin and christened Integrity by the crew for this mission, the capsule can support four astronauts for missions of up to 21 days.
The capsule offers the interior volume of about two minivans — not enough space to offer crew members any privacy.
The foot pans on the pilot’s and the commander’s seats can be removed to free more space during work and sleep. In case of a radiation event like a solar flare, the astronauts can shelter in the stowage lockers under the seats.
Why is NASA going back to the moon?
After Neil Armstrong stepped on the moon, many felt that the space race with the Soviet Union was won and that new lunar missions were not worth the expense.
In the decades since, NASA has focussed on low-Earth orbit exploration with the space shuttles and the International Space Station.
During the first Trump administration, going back to the moon became a priority for NASA, and the program continued under President Joe Biden. The Artemis missions aim to explore the moon for scientific discovery and mine it for resources like frozen water for later space missions, and helium-3 for future fusion power plants.
ARTEMIS I: The first mission of the Artemis program, launched in November 2022, sent an uncrewed Orion capsule into orbit around the moon. Along the way, the mission deployed several small satellites known as CubeSats. Orion returned to Earth 26 days later.
ARTEMIS II: This year’s mission aims to test the life-support and other critical systems on Orion. After separating from the upper stage of the rocket, the crew plans to test Orion’s ability to execute docking maneuvers for future flights. If any serious problems arise while Orion is still in Earth orbit, mission managers will bring the astronauts home.
Once the spacecraft heads to the moon, it will be on what is known as a “free return” trajectory: The moon’s gravity will swing the capsule directly back to Earth without the need for any firing of the engines. That means the Orion capsule could return to Earth even if there were a failure of the propulsion system.
As Orion flies by the moon’s far side, the astronauts will make observations of the lunar surface, including parts that have never been seen by human eyes. (The Apollo missions were timed so that the near side of the moon, where the astronauts landed, was in daylight, so the far side then was largely in darkness.) The New York Times