How Artemis II astronauts could change how we see Earth forever

NASA’s Artemis II crewed mission lifted off late on Wednesday (April 1) on the Space Launch System (SLS) rocket to begin their journey around the Moon.

The SLS rocket lifted the Orion spacecraft and its four‑person crew — Reid Wiseman, Victor Glover, Christina Koch, and Jeremy Hanson — from Nasa's Kennedy Space Centre in Florida beyond Earth’s atmosphere, the start of a 10‑day mission.

Here's what to know about the mission:

What makes the mission unique?

As the spacecraft flies by the mysterious "far side" of the Moon — the hemisphere that always faces away from Earth — the astronauts will see a region that even the Apollo astronauts could never behold, because of the low‑equatorial orbits their capsules followed.​

What technical milestone is the Artemis II mission expected to accomplish?

The Artemis II team's journey will mark the first time humans have ventured into the Moon’s vicinity in over 50 years — potentially kicking off a new wave of lunar exploration that could answer some of the oldest questions about Earth’s natural satellite.​

“We’ve been looking at the Moon throughout human history, and the Moon has been visited by astronauts and a number of robotic missions,” said Jeff Andrews‑Hanna, a professor in the Lunar and Planetary Laboratory at the University of Arizona.

“Yet there’s still so many things we don’t understand about the Moon on a very first‑order level.”​

What Apollo told us — and what it missed

The Apollo missions in the late 1960s and early 1970s brought back crucial rock and soil samples that became the foundation of our modern understanding of the Moon.​

Those samples revealed insights into the Moon’s origin and composition —and more recent analysis of untouched Apollo rocks, as well as samples retrieved by robotic missions like Chang’e‑5, uncovered the surprising discovery of water trapped in rocks once thought to be bone‑dry.​

But Apollo astronauts only visited a handful of sites near the lunar equator on the near side, where the terrain was flat and missions could stay within range of communication satellites.​

That means the Apollo samples aren’t fully representative of the Moon’s wildly diverse surface.​

Why the Artemis missions matter

The broader Artemis programme aims to visit different regions of the Moon, including around the poles and the far side, to build a more complete picture of its composition and geology.​

Doing so could help explain why the near and far sides differ, how much water the Moon contains, and how the silvery orb has evolved over billions of years.​

“I think of the Moon as the eighth continent of Earth,” said Noah Petro, chief of NASA’s Planetary, Geology, Geophysics and Geochemistry Laboratory at Goddard Space Flight Center. “When we study the Moon, we’re actually really studying an extension of the Earth.”​

The promise of the unexpected

Beyond confirming theories, there’s also the chance of surprise discoveries.

“We will have surprises,” Petro said. “That’s why we explore. If we knew what we would find, we wouldn’t have to go.”​

Petro leads the science team for Artemis IV, which aims to return astronauts to the lunar surface in 2028 — a mission that could finally bring back new samples from regions far beyond the Apollo landing zones.​

How Apollo rewrote the Moon’s origin story

Whenever a spacecraft lands on a planet or asteroid, the most valuable thing it can often do is bring back a sample to Earth, said Barbara Cohen, project scientist for Artemis V, another planned lunar landing later this decade.​

Apollo’s samples forced scientists to rewrite textbooks.

Before the landings, experts debated whether the Moon formed elsewhere in the solar system and was captured by Earth, or whether it separated from the rapidly spinning early Earth like a blob of material.​

Why is anorthosite from the Moon important?

But the Apollo rocks contained anorthosite, a type of white igneous rock rare to see alone on Earth but common on the Moon’s near side.​

“What you need is a really big magma pond that slowly crystallises and all of the anorthosite will float up to the top of the pond if it’s cooling slowly enough,” said Carolyn Crow, assistant professor of geological sciences at the University of Colorado Boulder.​

The widespread presence of anorthosite suggested the Moon was once a global magma ocean. 

Combined with isotope data from Apollo rocks that match Earth’s mantle, scientists converged on the idea that the Moon formed from debris ejected by a giant impact between Earth and a Mars‑size object.​

What Artemis II could change

With Artemis II, humans will for the first time orbit the Moon’s far side with their eyes, giving humanity a visceral, real‑time view of regions robotic missions have only mapped from afar.​

In the end, Artemis II won’t just be a technical milestone; it could be the first step in revising humanity’s understanding of both the Moon — and the early Earth.

Artemis II mission timeline:

Day 0: Liftoff (April 1, 2026, at 22:35 UTC)

• NASA’s Artemis II successfully blasts off, launching toward the Moon in the first crewed lunar voyage in 53 years.

• The SLS rocket lifts the Orion spacecraft and its four‑person crew beyond Earth’s atmosphere, beginning the 10‑day mission.

Day 1: Outbound coast and rest

• Total mission duration: 10 days.

• The crew will stay about 5,000 miles from the Moon’s surface at closest.

• Astronauts will sleep in two four‑hour blocks per day, a schedule designed to keep them alert during the long transit.

Day 2: Breaking free of Earth

• Orion’s engines fire to accelerate the spacecraft to escape velocity, officially sending it on its path toward the Moon.

Days 3–5: Midcourse toward the Moon

• The crew fine‑tunes the spacecraft’s approach to the Moon, making small trajectory corrections to ensure the flyby happens at the right distance and angle.

Day 6: Flyby at the Moon

• The Orion capsule swings by the Moon, dipping about 250,000 miles from Earth, the farthest any humans have traveled.

• The Moon will be roughly 5,000 miles beneath the spacecraft—close enough for detailed views but not for landing.

Days 6–7: Turning back home

• The crew adjusts Orion’s trajectory again, this time setting up the return path to Earth rather than a lunar orbit or landing.

Day 8–9: Cruise back to Earth

• Orion coasts through deep space on its way home, with the crew conducting tests, collecting data, and preparing for reentry.

Day 10: Reentry and splashdown

• The astronauts put on their proper suits and secure the capsule for the violent plunge back into Earth’s atmosphere.

• Orion reenters at about 25,000 miles per hour, the fastest human reentry in decades.

• A pair of parachutes (with backups staged just in case) will slow the capsule down to a gentle 17 miles per hour.

• The Orion capsule splashes down off the coast of San Diego, California, concluding the first human mission to fly around the Moon since Apollo.