Astronauts heading to the moon for the first time in half a century

Four astronauts who will perform NASA's Artemis 2 mission arrived at Kennedy Space Center in Florida on March 27 (local time). They will board the first manned spacecraft to be launched toward the moon in 52 years since Apollo 17 in 1972.

Reid Wiseman, Victor Glover and Christina Koch from NASA and Jeremy Hansen from the Canadian Space Agency (CSA) flew the T-38 jet from Houston's Johnson Space Center and landed on the Kennedy Space Center Shuttle Landing Facility runway at 2:15 p.m.

Launched on April 1, 10-day lunar orbit flight

They are scheduled to be launched aboard NASA's Space Launch System (SLS) rocket as early as April 1. They will board the Orion spacecraft and perform a mission to orbit the moon for 10 days and return to Earth. The launch period is open until April 6.

The astronauts have been in quarantine since March 20, the day the SLS rocket moved from the assembly building to the launch pad, and will remain in this quarantine until launch. After arriving, astronaut Wiseman said, "I really love coming here. I've been talking about how great it is to land at Kennedy Space Center about 100 miles ago."

Key test flights of the Artemis program

Artemis 2 serves as a stepping stone for the Artemis program, which aims for a manned lunar landing. This mission will test the Orion spacecraft's life support system for the first time with astronauts on board.

On this flight, the crew will not land on the moon. Instead, it follows a path called a 'free-return trajectory', going around the far side of the moon and returning directly to Earth. This route was designed so that after entering lunar orbit, it could return to Earth without a separate large-scale engine injection.

After moving to the first launch pad early this year, the SLS rocket was returned to the assembly building after maintenance problems were discovered during a pre-launch inspection in February. This is the second launch pad move.

Roadmap towards moon landing in 2028

Following the successful completion of the Artemis 2 mission, NASA plans an Earth orbit demonstration of the Orion spacecraft and lunar lander on Artemis 3 next year. Depending on the lander's readiness, the program's first lunar landing is targeted on Artemis 4 in 2028.

After that, NASA plans to establish an architecture to build a sustainable forward base by deploying habitation facilities, exploration rovers, and regular cargo landers on the lunar surface through the 2030s.

“We are not trying to make it perfect from the beginning. In fact, this is a test and experiment phase,” the official explained. “A variety of rovers and landers will be deployed, which means many opportunities to integrate scientific and technological payloads.”

If NASA's schedule is maintained, the crew will move to the Neil Armstrong Operation and Check Facility (O&C) early in the morning on Wednesday, April 2, the day of launch, and begin wearing space suits. Charging of the SLS rocket's cryogenic liquid hydrogen and liquid oxygen propellants will begin at 7:45 a.m., with liftoff scheduled for a two-hour launch window at 6:24 p.m.