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Artemis 2 is NASA's mission to the moon. Launching in early 2026, it'll be the first time that humans have visited the moon in over 50 years. But it's more like a test flight. Four astronauts will fly to the far side of the moon on a 10-day journey using the most powerful manned rocket to date. Today, I'm going to break down Artemis 2 for you in three parts: the spacecraft, the mission, and the crew. So, let's go.
Explain the Artemis 2 spacecraft real quick. So, the whole rocket that they're using is called the Space Launch System, or usually just called the SLS. It has two solid rocket boosters on both sides, a lot like the Space Shuttle, and an orange core stage in the middle. On Artemis 2, the solid rocket boosters have something that make them really unique. They have a giant America 250 logo painted on top of both of them to celebrate the 250th anniversary of the United States of America, which is in 2026. Pretty cool, especially considering that this rocket was made by engineers from every state in the United States.
The next rocket stage is called the interim cryogenic propulsion stage or ICPS. Above that is the upper stage, Orion. Orion is really the star of this rocket, and it has a few major sections, too. This bottom section is the European service module or ESM, and it provides power and propulsion. It's the way that Orion gets around in space.
Then there's the crew module, sometimes called the capsule, and this is where the astronauts live and work. In fact, astronauts will stay in this capsule the entire mission. On Artemis 2, the crew have named their capsule Integrity. When the entire mission is done, this capsule is the only part that will return back to Earth.
And finally, this top tower bit is called the launch abort system or LAS. Hopefully, the astronauts won't need it, but if they do, it can actually pull the capsule away from the rest of the rocket if there was a major malfunction or an explosion and hopefully save the astronauts' lives.
If you want to learn more about the SLS, I have a whole video about that right here.
Now that we know our spacecraft, let's talk about the Artemis 2 mission specifically. As I mentioned before, Artemis 2 is a test mission. Artemis 1, the first test of the space launch system, it launched back in 2022 and was an amazing success. But Artemis 1 was uncrewed. Now it's time to test this full system with crew on board. And this crew is going to be able to test out a lot more of the human-centric features: docking, radiation shielding, communication, eating.
"The four of us will gather to share meals when we're on our 9-day trip around the moon."
"Inside here, our device will be able to portion of water to fill up water bags for us to drink, but also to rehydrate the food."
Sleeping, exercise.
"This is the flywheel device. And what I kind of want you to imagine is a rowing machine. So we can do rowing like a cardiovascular workout. Can do weightlifting with it. So we can do squats. We can do deadlifts. Uh we can do curls. Varied levels of resistance to really put a lot of stress on our muscles and our bones."
Going to the bathroom.
"Inside the capsule, this would be the floor. You would float over to it. Uh open up this hinging door. Float on in."
All the human things that we couldn't test before.
Artemis 2 will launch from the Kennedy Space Center in Florida from launchpad 39B. Launchpad 39B launched Apollo 10 to the moon in the 1960s and many shuttle missions, including this shuttle mission that I got to see launched when I was a kid. And it will launch as early as February 5th, 2026. And when the countdown hits zero, it's going to be the most powerful manned rocket launch in history.
2 minutes into launch, we're going to jettison the solid rocket boosters and be left just with the core stage powering it into low Earth orbit. And this is when the launch abort system will be jettisoned as well. 8 minutes in, the core stage is out of fuel. And so it's going to separate and fall back to Earth. While the second stage, the ICPS, ignites and gives the final push to get the crew into space.
After two burns, the ICPS is going to have Orion in an elliptical high Earth orbit. And so now Orion is going to be 46,000 miles away from Earth on the far side. And the close side of its orbit is going to be 115 miles from Earth. And this orbit will take about 1 day to complete.
During this first day, Orion's going to separate from the ICPS and begin to do a docking practice maneuver. In the coming years, Orion will dock with the lunar lander and the Gateway station. So we need to know how well does the autopilot work? Do the thrusters work the way we expect them to?
If you remember the two astronauts who were stuck in space for a while, Butch and Sunny, last year, they were testing out a new spacecraft called Starliner. And the whole reason that NASA kept them on the space station for months instead of weeks was because of bad thrusters. We need to make sure Orion does not have similar issues.
Once Orion passes back by the Earth, it's going to reignite its engine for the trans-lunar injection or TLI. This is the final push to get our astronauts to the moon for a free return trajectory.
What is a free return trajectory, you may ask? It means the gravity of the moon and the Earth will naturally bring Artemis 2 back home. No additional burns required. This is a great idea for a test spacecraft like Orion. If anything goes wrong with Artemis 2, it'll just naturally come back to Earth using gravity alone. This is actually the same flight path that ended up saving the Apollo 13 astronauts after their disaster on the way to the moon.
For Artemis 2, the journey to the moon is going to take 4 days. During that time, the crew is going to be running emergency procedures, including what to do in case of a major radiation event. See, if humans are going to do these long missions that we're talking about, like going to the moon or maybe one day going to Mars, we have to figure out how to deal with deep space radiation. Orion has a shelter on board, and the astronauts are going to test and see how effective it is in actual use.
All right, so as I mentioned before, Artemis 2 is not a lunar landing. The astronauts are not going to be walking on the moon for this mission. This is a lunar flyby mission. If you're at all familiar with the Apollo 8 mission from the 1960s, that's the Christmas Apollo flight. This mission is really similar.
Their flight is going to take them 230,000 miles away from the Earth to the far side of the moon. As you may already know, there's a side of the moon that always faces the Earth and then there's the far side of the moon that we will never see from standing on the Earth's surface, and that's the destination for our Artemis 2 astronauts.
This is a simulation of what that flyby mission for Artemis 2 is going to look like. This is actually what the astronauts will see. The closest the astronauts will get to the lunar surface is about 4,600 miles.
After the flyby, Orion will do any necessary little corrections that it needs to to land precisely at the right place and the right time back on Earth. After another 4 days, Integrity will separate from the ESM and re-enter the atmosphere for splashdown. They will splash down in the Pacific Ocean, be picked up by the United States Navy, and complete their 10-day mission.
All right, so let's talk about the crew. There are four astronauts on board Artemis 2: Reid Wiseman, Victor Glover, Christina Koch, and Jeremy Hansen. As you might guess, these four people are exceptional. Some of the best of the best. The exact people you would pick on an Artemis 2 mission. I'm going to highlight just a couple of things that stood out to me about each one of their bios, but seriously, you need to go read them. I've linked them all in the description of this video. These are incredible people who have done amazing things in their lifetimes.
Reid Wiseman will serve as the commander for Artemis 2. He is a 27-year Navy veteran, a pilot, a father, an engineer, and a Baltimore native. Wiseman has been an astronaut since 2009, and he's logged 167 days in space.
Victor Glover will be the pilot for Artemis 2. He's a test pilot, a legislative fellow with the United States Senate, a father, and an engineer from California. He served in Operation Iraqi Freedom, and has flown 40 aircraft across 24 different combat missions. And Glover has been an astronaut since 2013.
Christina Koch is a mission specialist on Artemis 2. She's an electrical engineer, an Antarctic explorer, a firefighter, and has worked on major scientific programs for both NASA and NOAA. She grew up on a family farm in Michigan and attended North Carolina State University. She's been an astronaut since 2013 and holds the record as the woman with the longest single space flight, almost a full year.
And finally, we have Jeremy Hansen. Hansen is a Canadian astronaut, and he will be a mission specialist for Artemis 2. He's a pilot, a physicist, a colonel with the Canadian military, an aquanaut, and a father. He first got his wings when he was just 16 years old and became a firefighter pilot for the Royal Canadian Air Force. He became a CSA astronaut in 2009. And in 2017, he became the first Canadian astronaut to lead a NASA astronaut class. And get this, Artemis 2 is going to be Hansen's first space flight. You can't really beat a trip to the moon as your first flight in space.
So that's the crew. Four incredible astronauts who are going to be able to test out everything for future missions and be our first return to the moon in over 5 decades.
So the big question: when is Artemis 2 happening? Very soon. The first launch window for Artemis 2 opens on February 5th, 2026. Now, it took Artemis 1 a couple of launch attempts before NASA got everything working properly, but the result of that attention to detail and that patience was a very successful flight. And this time, Artemis 2 has actual humans on board. So, don't be surprised if there are a couple of scrubbed launch attempts over the next couple of months.
Me and my family are hoping to be there for launch, hopefully with some of you guys. And if you are as excited for the Artemis 2 launch as I am, be sure to check out all of the Artemis 2 shirts and merch that I have put out on my Digital Astronaut Etsy shop, like this one, available now. Be sure to like and subscribe, and you can check out my other Artemis videos right here.