NASA may be 1 month away from historic Artemis 2 astronaut launch around the moon
Artemis 2, NASA's next astronaut mission to the moon, is gearing up for a launch that could occur as soon as Feb. 6.
NASA's uncrewed Artemis 1 moon mission on the pad before its November 2022 launch. (Image credit: NASA)
We're at T-1 month to liftoff of NASA's next astronaut mission to the moon, if current schedules hold.
Artemis 2, the first crewed mission of NASA's Artemis program, could launch as soon as Feb. 6. The mission will fly NASA astronauts Reid Wiseman, Victor Glover and Christina Koch and Canadian Space Agency astronaut Jeremy Hansen on the first trip to lunar space in more than half a century, and will pave the way for what NASA intends to be an eventual permanent human presence on the moon.
If all goes according to plan, their launch will place Orion in Earth orbit, where the crew will complete a series of systems checkouts on their spacecraft before committing to burn for the moon.
A translunar injection (TLI) burn of SLS's upper stage will place Orion on a free-return trajectory — a figure-eight loop around the moon that slingshots the capsule back to Earth without the need for another burn of its engines.
The trajectory doesn't insert Orion into lunar orbit, but it ensures the spacecraft and crew's return to Earth regardless of any anomalies they might encounter after TLI.
Artemis 2 will be the first mission to send humans to the moon since the end of NASA's Apollo program and the departure of the Apollo 17 astronauts from the moon in 1972, and has been nearly two decades in the making. SLS, Orion and the space agency's plans to reboot its lunar program have had an evolving architecture at the cost of nearly $50 billion since 2006, with a roughly $4 billion-per-launch price tag at the moment.
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Artemis 1 launched in November 2022, successfully sending an uncrewed Orion capsule to and from lunar orbit. Designed as a spacecraft systems shakedown, NASA had hoped Artemis 1 would put the program on a quick path to Artemis 2 and returning astronauts to the moon. Artemis 2's original 2023 launch target, however, was delayed by caused during Artemis 1's reentry through .
