Back to the Moon: NASA’s Artemis 2 mission nears historic launch

On Saturday morning, NASA began a move that appears to be only technical, but actually marks a point of no return. The Space Launch System rocket, the most powerful ever built, was moved from the huge assembly building at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida to the launch pad. The journey of about four kilometers was carried out using a special caterpillar at an extremely slow speed, and lasted for many hours, during which the weather conditions and the engineering systems were constantly checked.

This move opens the final sequence of tests leading up to the Artemis 2 mission, the first manned mission of the Artemis program. The mission is expected to last about ten days, during which four astronauts will circle the moon in an elliptical orbit, travel thousands of kilometers beyond it, and return to Earth. This is not a landing on the moon, but a manned test flight designed to test all the systems of the Orion spacecraft in deep space conditions.

During the flight, the team will perform a series of critical experiments. They will fly the spacecraft manually in orbit around the Earth, test the navigation, propulsion, electrical and life support systems, and will also serve as medical subjects. The radiation levels in deep space are significantly higher than those on the International Space Station, and the data collected will be essential for longer missions in the future.

The road to launch was not smooth. The Artemis 2 mission has already been delayed for more than a year. The Artemis 1 unmanned test flight, carried out in late 2022, revealed problems with Orion’s heat shield and life support system. Since then, significant engineering changes have been made, and even in recent weeks there have been reports of localized malfunctions, such as a cable in the emergency system that is bent and needs to be replaced. In the meantime, NASA is planning a full general return at the end of January, which includes refueling about 3.2 million liters of fuel and running a full countdown.

The launch windows themselves are limited. Due to the position of the Moon in relation to the Earth, there are only a few days each month when the mission can be launched. Currently, it is between February 6 and 11, or alternatively at the beginning of March or April. Even then, weather, technical malfunctions or the intrusion of vessels and air into the security zones may cause the launch to be postponed at the last minute.

Beyond the technical challenge, Artemis 2 carries with it a heavy symbolic and strategic charge. NASA emphasizes that the return to the moon is not only intended to restore the achievements of the past, but to establish a lasting human presence. The moon is supposed to serve as an experimental base for technologies, a new space economy and international collaborations, and above all as an intermediate stop on the way to the next ambitious goal, sending humans to Mars.

The next mission, Artemis 3, is set to land a man on the moon for the first time since the 1970s, and is planned to put a non-white man and woman there. However, it is also delayed and is expected not before 2027 or 2028, among other things due to the development of the lunar lander and the new suits.