‘Another’ giant leap for mankind!

Humanity is preparing to send astronauts back to the moon for the first time in over half a century, carrying these individuals farther from Earth than any crewed mission in decades and reigniting a sense of possibility which was once defined by the Space Age.

Photo credit: Nasa website

Artemis II is NASA’s first crewed mission in its Artemis program and will send four astronauts on a journey around the Moon, marking humanity’s return to deep-space exploration beyond low Earth orbit.

The crew includes commander Reid Wiseman, Pilot Victor Glover, Mission Specialist Christina Koch, and Mission Specialist Jeremy Hansen. These individuals will confirm all the spacecraft’s systems operate as designed in the actual vacuum of  deep space during their 10-day mission around the moon and back.

Their mission will test the Orion spacecraft, which they named ‘Integrity’ during a news conference last September, and the Space Launch System (SLS) rocket with a human crew aboard, validating critical systems needed for future lunar landings according to the NASA website.

While Artemis II will not land on the Moon, it represents a major step toward establishing a long-term human presence on the lunar surface and laying the groundwork for eventual missions to Mars.