U.S astronauts set to embark on historic return to lunar orbit in Artemis II mission

On Wednesday, NASA’s Orion spacecraft will launch from Florida, marking the start of the Artemis II mission to send four astronauts to lay eyes on the moon for the first time since the end of the Apollo program in 1972.

Artemis II will be the first time in more than 50 years that NASA astronauts have left Earth’s orbit to embark on the roughly 685,000-mile journey aboard the Orion capsule and slingshot back for the return home. 

The journey will be a test for the Orion spacecraft’s life support systems and is important for the crew to practice operations that will be required for the subsequent Artemis missions aimed at planting boots on the lunar surface by 2028, according to NASA’s timeline. 

Space policy

The mission is on schedule to achieve President Donald Trump’s space policy outlined in an executive order last year. The administration, the president said, will focus its space policy on returning Americans to the moon by 2028 in order to prepare for the next steps in the exploration of Mars. 

The launch also serves a geopolitical purpose for the administration, which has made it a priority to compete and to win against China’s growing space capabilities. 

"We find ourselves with a real geopolitical rival, challenging American leadership in the high ground of space," NASA Administrator Jared Isaacman said earlier this month.

Astronaut: "We are expanding in the Solar System”

"This time, the goal is not flags and footprints," he added. "This time, the goal is to stay. America will never again give up the Moon." 

The chief space official’s rhetoric harks back to the Cold War space battle between the United States and the Soviet Union, bitterly fought with space launches of increasing scientific and technological complexity rather than force of arms. 

Though the Soviet Union shocked the world with its successful 1957 launch of Sputnik–the world’s first satellite–the United States decisively won the contest, first reaching the moon’s orbit in 1968 and landing astronauts on its surface in 1969. Those missions, part of NASA’s Apollo program, were never matched by the Soviet Union. 

Today, the main competitor is China, which has set a 2030 deadline for landing its own astronauts, called "taikonauts," on the moon. Communist Party leaders first discussed the possibility of a moon mission in 1970, the same year China launched its first satellite into space. Since then, the Chinese have made tremendous progress in their space program and have launched four unmanned lunar probes since 2004. 

For astronaut Reid Wiseman, the commander of the expedition, the Artemis II mission should be viewed as the first step into a new age of American space exploration and as laying the foundation for human landings on Mars and beyond.  

"When I look at the future, when we talk about what is our legacy, I don’t want to look five years or 10 years in the future. I want to look 100 or 200 years in the future. Honestly, this is where I thought it may land wrong: I hope we are forgotten,” Wiseman previously told reporters. 

"If we are forgotten, then Artemis has been successful,” he said. “We have humans on Mars, we have humans on the moons of Saturn, we are expanding in the Solar System.”  

Joining Wiseman are pilot Victor Glover, mission specialist Christina Koch, and Canadian astronaut Jeremey Hansen–marking the first time that an astronaut not from the United States has made the journey to the moon. 

The Artemis II rocket is scheduled to launch as early as 6:24 PM on Wednesday, April 1 at Florida’s Kennedy Space Center. NASA originally planned the launch for early March, but delayed the mission because of a failure in one of the rocket’s systems.

NASA says that the mission’s primary objectives will pave the way for future lunar missions and further manned exploration of the Solar System. The first is to demonstrate the ability of the Orion spacecraft to sustain the flight crew through their return to Earth. The second is to demonstrate systems and operations vital for future lunar missions. The third is to test the spacecraft’s hardware and software. The fourth is to test and practice emergency systems and procedures.

The roots of the current lunar mission plans were laid during the first Trump administration in 2017, when the president signed Space Policy Directive 1, which directed NASA to focus national space policy on a return to the moon. In 2019, Vice President Mike Pence announced that the administration would try to accelerate the timeline, aiming to land on the moon by 2024. 

"A measure of national vision and willpower": Trump

"Urgency must be our watchword," Pence said at a National Security Council meeting in Huntsville, Alabama that year. "The United States must remain first in space in this century as in the last, not just to propel our economy and secure our nation but, above all, because the rules and values of space, like every great frontier, will be written by those who have the courage to get there first and the commitment to stay."

The mission faced setbacks due to delays in developing the next generation of spacesuits and slower than expected SpaceX Starship development (the rocket under development by Elon Musk’s SpaceX was originally chosen for the Artemis 3 landing). The Trump timeline was slowly abandoned after President Joe Biden took over in Jan. 2021, Space.com reported. 

When he took office again last year, President Trump again made a moon landing a key priority, specifically setting the goal in a framework for American “space superiority”–encompassing both space exploration as well as defense and national security. 

“Superiority in space is a measure of national vision and willpower, and the technologies Americans develop to achieve it contribute substantially to the Nation’s strength, security, and prosperity,” the president wrote in a December executive order.  

“The United States must therefore pursue a space policy that will extend the reach of human discovery, secure the Nation’s vital economic and security interests, unleash commercial development, and lay the foundation for a new space age,” he continued.