WASHINGTON POST: NASA’s Artemis II launch is one giant leap for manned space exploration of the future

Four astronauts lifted off before sunset Wednesday, starting a historic 10-day journey to fly by the moon and propel people farther into space than they have ever gone before.

The Artemis II mission is scheduled to loop around the moon for the first time since the Apollo era. It is a crucial first chapter for an ambitious and risky program to eventually return people to the lunar surface, build a base there and use it as a stepping stone to push deeper into the solar system.

The liftoff depended on a rocket and capsule that have never transported humans before. The rocket cleared the tower and began the journey toward low Earth orbit at 6.35pm. The astronauts will circle the Earth, testing life support systems and making final checks before burning their engines to head toward the moon.

“We have a beautiful moonrise, and we’re headed right at it,” Reid Wiseman, mission commander, said minutes into the flight.

The Artemis II launch marks a risky, expensive, technically challenging landmark - the formal reopening of human ambition to explore deep space. Human spaceflight may almost seem familiar and humdrum these days, with astronauts living at the International Space Station for prolonged periods and a commercial spaceflight industry regularly sending people into low Earth orbit. But going to the moon is inherently more dangerous. It means going farther and faster, relying on hardware that has never been used to transport humans anywhere, much less the moon.

“I think this is right up there with the first launch of the space shuttle in 1981. That was the first launch of a new launch vehicle, and it had a crew on board, which was kind of a daredevil move,” said Todd Harrison a senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute who follows space policy. “This is a capsule that’s only flown once. It had problems the first time it flew. And now we’re sending it with a crew out to the moon.”

In an era of private and commercial space contracts, this is a traditional mission, drawing on a heavy-lift rocket and capsule developed by NASA over more than a decade.

Artemis II mission astronauts are expected to loop around the moon, travelling 406,840km away from Earth and shattering the Apollo record by more than 6400km. The mission is a step toward returning to the moon’s surface in the future.

“We’re ready to go out to the moon and Mars and the rest of the solar system. We have enough knowledge now to hopefully have reduced the risk, and so really this is the first step of that path of humans through the solar system,” said Pamela Melroy, a former astronaut and deputy NASA administrator under President Joe Biden. “I think I could hardly miss it. If you go back, one of the things I’m most envious is when someone said they saw an Apollo launch.”

The astronauts aboard NASA’s Orion spacecraft — Mr Wiseman, Victor Glover, Christina Koch and Jeremy Hansen of the Canadian Space Agency — will first go to low Earth orbit. If all systems are go, they will begin their journey to the moon, arriving six days after launch, following a figure-eight pattern that peaks at more than 4,600 miles beyond the far side of the moon. The spacecraft is expected to return and splash down in the Pacific Ocean next week.

The excitement — and tension — in the space community is high. At press briefings, NASA officials have stressed that previous setbacks, including an issue with helium flow needed to pressurise propellant tanks that delayed the launch earlier this year, have been addressed. When Artemis I flew in 2022, with no people aboard, the heat shield that protects the capsule upon its fast and fiery reentry into Earth’s atmosphere was damaged, a problem NASA has worked to fix but will face its most crucial test upon reentry.

Melroy sees this mission as an exciting step toward exploring the solar system, but described the big differences between travelling to low Earth orbit and going beyond.

“You have to prepare the vehicle structurally; it has to be stronger and the heat shield needs greater levels of shield,” Mr Melroy said. “It’s not like anything we’ve built or operated since Apollo, and there’s been some learning on that.”

Jack Kiraly, director of government relations for the Planetary Society, pointed out that the rocket and capsule have never flown with human cargo. “It still kind of feels like a new vehicle a little bit, so every moment is going to be exciting,” Mr Kiraly said.

This mission will be a crucial test for the Artemis program, estimated to have cost $US107 billion ($154b) by the Planetary Society. Artemis III, planned for 2027, will test operations and systems to dock with landers being made by SpaceX and Blue Origin. Artemis IV in 2028 is expected to be the first time humans will set foot on the moon again.

In late March, NASA administrator Jared Isaacman announced a plan to build a $US20b lunar base.

“I’m excited (about) going to the moon. I’m excited about establishing a presence there,” said Jeff Spaulding, test director with the Exploration Ground Systems program at Kennedy Space Centre at a briefing Tuesday afternoon. “It’s part of the reason that I’m actually still here is to continue to put humans into space, and to get us back into this launch mode, so that we can continue to explore and establish a moon base, and then continue to work towards getting to Mars.”

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