Artemis II - 1st Lunar Mission in 54 Years

Tomorrow April 1st (no April fools) NASA will attempt to launch Artemis II. This is the third attempt this year. Attempts in February ended during wet dress rehearsal due to propellant leaks. The attempt in March ended due to a stuck valve in the upper stage. For this attempt the countdown clock is rolling towards the first launch attempt at 6:24 PM eastern time. The launch window is 2 hours long. The mission is a loop around the moon on a free return trajectory similar to Apollos 8 and 13. The Orion space craft carried aloft by the SLS rocket will end up heading towards High Earth Orbit where it will separate from the upper stage (ICPS) and perform proximity operations (see the orange box on the right) around the ICPS. This gives the crew to check the manual handling characteristics of Orion and practice portions of the maneuvers required for docking on subsequent missions... Read more