The Artemis II astronauts may have launched on a historic lunar mission, but they're not quite on their way toward the moon just yet.
In fact, it's likely that the four crew members just woke up from some much needed sleep the morning after finally getting off the ground from Florida's Kennedy Space Center on the long-awaited mission. For much of Thursday, April 2, the Orion capsule carrying the Artemis II crew will linger in Earth orbit before preparations begin to send the vehicle toward the moon.
Ahead, the four crew members – NASA astronauts Reid Wiseman, Christina Koch and Victor Glover, and the Canadian Space Agency's Jeremy Hansen – will venture farther in space than anyone in human history. The mission will make Glover the first Black man to venture within the vicinity of the moon, while Koch will become the first woman and Hansen the first Canadian to do so.
Primarily considered a test mission, Artemis II could represent a giant step toward NASA's goal of returning astronauts to the lunar surface for the first time since the Apollo missions came to an end in 1972. The mission, expected to last about 10 days, is a critical demonstration that NASA's Orion crew capsule can handle a lunar mission with humans aboard before a landing is attempted as early as 2028.
