«We strongly hope that a new era will open in which the Moon is not only beautiful to look at, but also becomes a destination.” The four astronauts who will participate in the launch tomorrow April 1st are full of expectations Artemis II space missionthe first human flight beyond low Earth orbit after the Apollo 17 mission in 1972. It will be a lunar flyby and return to Earth: the four will mainly have the task of testing the Orion shuttle, in view of the moon landing in 2028.
A “first” mission since among the four members of the crew – the commander Reid Wisemanthe pilot Victor Glover and the mission specialist Christina Kochall three from NASA, and the mission specialist Jeremy Hansenof the Canadian space agency CSA – there are the first black astronaut (Glover), and the first woman and the first non-US astronaut to travel beyond low Earth orbit. The launch is scheduled for around 6.30pm (midnight in Italy) from the Kennedy Space Center in Florida. «The vehicle is ready, the system is ready. The crew is ready,” the NASA associate administrator said at a press conference. Amit Kshatriya.
Between the trip and the lunar flyby, the mission should last about four daysduring which the crew will monitor the spacecraft’s systems, collect data on the effects of deep space travel and perform, if necessary, trajectory correction firings. “We are 100% ready to fly,” Commander Wiseman also said. He and his two NASA colleagues have 25 years of space flight experience behind them, especially thanks to missions on the International Space Station (ISS): «This test flight – he said referring to the Artemis II mission – is a unique opportunity. The ISS was a great opportunity to experiment with many of the technologies that we will bring with us. We have all been to Antarctica and realized there that humanity needs to explore: this is the biggest motivation. And for the first time in history we also have companies capable of turning the dream of lunar exploration into reality.”
The first woman to fly into lunar orbit, Koch – who began dreaming of space from a comparative poster when she visited the Kennedy Space Center with her family – added: «Each of us is realizing a dream. We have many things to learn from this mission and we may have industrial, commercial, scientific and technological benefits, but above all we are going to find the key to answering fundamental questions about the Solar System and other planetary systemsthe”.
The mission is also highly anticipated in Europe. The European Space Agency (ESA) contributes to the Artemis program with the service module that supplies energy to the Orion shuttle. The Italian Space Agency is also involved in various ways, and is also designing the MPH habitation module to be placed on the lunar surface. If the launch is postponed for any reason, there will be other liftoff opportunities until April 6.
