What you need to know about the Artemis II moon mission

It's an exciting bit as iv intrepid astronauts — the canadian river blank Agency's Jeremy Hansen, on with NASA astronauts Reid Wiseman, Victor Glover and Christina Koch — head to the moon on a 10-day mission. 

The powerful rocket blasted off into a clear blue sky at 6:35 p.m. ET on Wednesday from the Kennedy Space Center, as crowds gathered along Florida's Space Coast to cheer on the first crewed trip to the moon in half a century.

"After a brief 54-year intermission, NASA is back in the business of sending astronauts to the moon," said NASA administrator Jared Isaacman in a post-launch news conference.

The Artemis II crew will spend a day in orbit around Earth, checking their capsule before firing the main engine that will propel them to the moon, setting a distance record — travelling some 405,000 kilometres into space — in the process.

If all goes well, the crew will fly past the moon — but not touch down — in about six days' time. On a wider scale, NASA hopes this mission lays the groundwork for future flights that take astronauts all the way to its surface.

With the mission now underway, the astronauts are testing systems aboard the Orion spacecraft. Here's a look at some of the key objectives of Artemis II.

Shortly after launch, the two white solid rocket boosters separated and splashed down in the ocean, followed by the core stage.  

The astronauts won't head straight to the moon. Instead, they will orbit Earth for about 25 hours. 

One objective while in Earth orbit is to test Orion's manoeuvrability.

The interim cryogenic propulsion stage (ICPS) will raise Orion into a high-Earth orbit before separating about four and a half hours after launch. The crew will then bring the capsule within a few metres of the ICPS to test handling.

After the test, the ICPS will re-enter Earth's atmosphere and fall into the Pacific Ocean. 

About five hours into the mission, four separate experiments on CubeSats — inexpensive microwave-sized satellites — will be deployed.

On Day 2, the crew will carry out a translunar injection burn, or TLI, putting them on a path to the moon. 

This is not a sightseeing trip. The astronauts will be hard at work testing systems and conducting experiments, some of which already started when they were on the ground. Some include testing how the human body reacts in space.

On Day 3, the astronauts will do a CPR demonstration. While that may sound relatively easy, remember, they have to do it in zero gravity. 

That same day, they will also test communications through NASA's Deep Space Network (DSN), a global system of ground antennas located in Goldstone, California; Madrid, Spain; and Canberra, Australia. The network communicates with spacecraft in deep space, including New Horizons, which flew past Pluto in 2015, and the Voyager spacecraft, launched in 1977.

Day 4 will be relatively quiet, with an orbital injection burn and a review of the lunar flyby imaging plans while, on Day 5, the astronauts will practice quickly donning their spacesuits and pressurizing them. 

Day 6 is the day everyone has been waiting for. The astronauts will approach the moon, swing around it and capture images of the far side of the lunar surface. These are not tourist photos, but targeted photographs of scientifically important regions rarely seen from Earth.

Although astronauts travelled to the moon in the 1960s and 1970s, this mission may offer views of the far side not previously observed by human eyes, in part because some regions were not illuminated during the Apollo missions.

When the astronauts are on the far side of the moon, they will experience what is known as a loss of signal (LOS), meaning they will be unable to communicate with Earth for roughly 30 minutes.

Day 7 is mostly a day off, though the four crewmembers will be communicating with scientists on Earth about the flyby.

Days 8 and 9 will focus on testing the radiation shielding and manual piloting of Orion, along with testing a garment designed to help astronauts regulate blood flow.

Finally, Day 10 brings the crew home. Their return will be a critical test of Orion's heat shield, which experienced issues during the uncrewed Artemis I mission. NASA says those problems have been fixed.

Canada's Jeremy Hansen on getting ready for the moon

Of course, this is only part of the workload. There will be other experiments, like testing an exercise wheel inside the capsule, which will be carried out by the Canadian astronaut.

They will also test laser communications as an alternative to radio and carry out the first ship-to-ship communications between Orion and astronauts aboard the International Space Station.

Why NASA is sending 'avatar' astronauts to the moon

All of this is in preparation for future missions to the lunar surface as part of the Artemis program. Artemis III, once planned as a moon landing, has now transitioned into a low Earth orbit docking test with a lunar lander developed by either Blue Origin or SpaceX.

Artemis IV is expected to return astronauts to the lunar surface by 2028.

Senior Science Reporter

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