The four solar array wings for the Artemis II Orion spacecraft are installed inside the Operations and Checkout Building at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida on March 7, 2025. Artemis II is Orion’s first crewed flight test around the Moon under the agency’s Artemis campaign. Credit: NASA/Rad Sinyak
NASA will test hardware, software, communications and human health in space during the Artemis II mission as soon as February. The mission is set to take astronauts farther from Earth than ever before and afford a never seen perspective of the moon during a fly-by, NASA officials said today.
“I’m very much looking forward to the day we send a crew back to the moon for the first time in a long time,” Jeff Radigan, NASA’s Artemis II flight director, said during a press conference. “It’s a test flight, so we’re going to put the vehicle through its paces and check all the systems, ensuring that everything is ready to go.” And then, the process of checking out the spacecraft will be “interrupted by a lunar fly-by.”
NASA officials said the launch of the SLS rocket stacked with the Orion capsule had been scheduled for as late as April, but the agency now wants to accelerate that timeline for a February launch. The agency has selected four astronauts: commander Reid Wiseman, pilot Victor Glover, mission specialist Christina Koch and mission specialist Jeremy Hansen of the Canadian Space Agency.
Lakiesha Hawkins, acting deputy associate administrator for exploration systems development, said NASA has received a clear message from the Trump administration.
“This administration asks us to acknowledge that we are indeed in what people have commonly called a second space race,” Hawkins said. “And there is a desire for us to return to the surface of the moon and to be the first to return to the surface. With that being said, NASA’s objective is to do so safely, right?”
Like the uncrewed Artemis I capsule in 2022, Artemis II and its crew will go farther past the moon than Apollo 13, which set the previous record for a human-rated spacecraft, by about 2,000 kilometers. At its closest point to the moon, Orion will be 6,900 kilometers (4,300 miles) above the lunar surface.
“So the moon is going to look a little bit smaller than from Apollo photos,” about the size of a basketball held at arm’s length, Radigan said. Depending on when exactly the launch occurs, the crew could observe the moon or part of the moon through a window or exterior camera for hours.
Asked what astronauts are expected to see, NASA officials said it’s a matter of perspective and human experience. For example, the crew might notice different colors or hues of gray on the lunar surface or something entirely new about the moon with the Earth and other celestial bodies in the background – like the famous Earthrise photo taken during Apollo 8.
NASA expects live video during parts of the journey closer to Earth, but, as the capsule travels farther into space, some communications will have to be recorded and saved on for later download and broadcast.
Upon its return, the Orion capsule will test a redesigned atmospheric reentry profile, to address problems encountered during Artemis I when chunks of that capsule’s heat shield sloughed off during reentry heating.
The new reentry profile won’t see the capsule bouncing up as high during a skipping motion to slow it down, said Rick Henfling, lead Artemis II entry flight director.
Rather than a “skip entry,” NASA is calling it a “lofted entry” that will result in heating the shield to a higher temperature for which it is designed.
“We shortened our entry range, which changes the temperature profile. That’s what gives us confidence” that the heat shield will function as intended, Henfling said.
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