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Half a century after Apollo, humans are about to leave Earth’s neighbourhood and head for the Moon once again. NASA’s Artemis II mission lifted off from the Kennedy Space Center in on April 1, 2026, sending four astronauts on a ten‑day voyage around the Moon and back in the Orion spacecraft. It will be the first crewed flight of NASA’s new Space Launch System (SLS) rocket and the first time since Apollo 17 in 1972 that humans travel beyond low Earth orbit.
Artemis II is not a landing mission. The crew will not set foot on the lunar surface; instead, they will fly past the far side of the Moon on a so‑called “free‑return” trajectory, letting lunar gravity bend their path back toward Earth. In that sense, Artemis II is more like Apollo 8 than Apollo 11: a dress rehearsal in deep space to prove that the rocket, the spacecraft, and the people inside them are ready for the far riskier task of landing near the Moon’s South Pole later in the decade.
The last time the world cared this much about the Moon, the context was entirely unique. In the 1960s, the “space race” between the United States and the Soviet Union was really a geopolitical duel: whoever reached the Moon first could claim technological and ideological superiority. From Sputnik and Yuri Gagarin to the Apollo landings, it was a contest of prestige rather than a plan to settle and use the Moon in the long term.
Today’s lunar revival is more complex. The United States still leads the Artemis programme, but it is joined by Europe, Japan, Canada, and others, while China and Russia are advancing their plans for a joint lunar research station. India’s Chandrayaan‑3 mission has already demonstrated that new players can achieve world‑class feats on the Moon, thanks to its Vikram lander and Pragyan rover, which made a historic landing near the lunar South Pole in August 2023. Instead of a two‑player Cold War, the Moon has become a crowded, contested, and scientifically exciting playground.
On launch day, the SLS mega-rocket will send Orion and its crew into Earth orbit and then fire its upper stage to push the spacecraft onto a path toward the Moon. Before committing to the long trip, the astronauts will first spend about a day in a high Earth orbit, testing life‑support systems, navigation, communications, and manual control of the spacecraft. Only when mission controllers are satisfied that everything is working as intended will Orion’s main engine perform the burn that swings the crew toward the Moon.
Three days later, Orion will sweep around the lunar far side, reaching a distance of roughly 70,000 kilometres from the Moon’s surface and traveling farther from Earth than any human since the Apollo era. From that vantage point, the astronauts will photograph the Moon and Earth, point instruments at the lunar surface, and test how well Orion operates in deep-space conditions of radiation, temperature swings, and communication delays. After the flyby, the spacecraft will fall naturally back toward Earth, ending with a high‑speed re‑entry and splashdown in the Pacific Ocean.
Artemis II’s crew symbolises how different this new Moon age is from Apollo. Commander Reid Wiseman and pilot Victor Glover are NASA astronauts with previous experience on the International Space Station. Mission specialist Christina Koch holds the record for the longest single spaceflight by a woman and participated in the first all‑female spacewalk. Joining them is Jeremy Hansen of the Canadian Space Agency, a former fighter pilot making his first trip to space.
Together, they will become the first humans to travel beyond low Earth orbit (LEO) in more than 50 years. Glover will be the first person of colour to fly near the Moon, Koch the first woman, and Hansen the first non-American. The choice of crew is deliberate: NASA wants Artemis to look more like the actual human population than Apollo’s all‑male, all‑white test‑pilot corps. For young people watching the launch, it will be difficult to miss the message that deep space is no longer reserved for one narrow slice of humanity.
Although Artemis II itself is only a flyby, it is designed to clear the way for the first landings of the Artemis era, which are targeted at the Moon’s South Polar Region. Unlike the equatorial Apollo sites, the poles possess a unique combination of darkness and light. Deep inside some craters, the Sun never rises; these permanently shadowed regions are colder than anything on Earth, cold enough to preserve water ice delivered over billions of years by comets and asteroids. Nearby ridges and crater rims, however, can receive near‑constant sunlight, offering natural “solar power peaks” for future bases.
Over the past decade, missions from NASA, ISRO, and other space agencies have found strong evidence for water ice mixed into the soil at both poles, including in the south. India’s Chandrayaan‑3 landing in 2023 was an important step, demonstrating that we can reach and study this challenging terrain robotically. Artemis III and later missions aim to follow up with astronauts who can drill, sample, and experiment directly in these environments.
Water ice is the most obvious prize because it can be split into hydrogen and oxygen to make rocket propellant, breathe oxygen, and drink water. A reliable local source of water could transform the economics of deep-space travel: instead of launching every kilogram of fuel from Earth’s deep gravity well, future spacecraft might top up their tanks in lunar orbit or at a base near the South Pole. In the longer term, scientists are also interested in the Moon’s stock of metals such as titanium and aluminum and even in trace amounts of the rare helium‑3 isotope, which some engineers view as a potential fuel for advanced fusion reactors.
Reality, however, is more cautious than science fiction. The ice we have detected so far is patchy and mixed with dust, not vast clean glaciers waiting to be scooped up. Mining helium‑3 for fusion would require huge, highly automated mining operations and a generation of new reactor technology. For at least the next few decades, the main value of lunar resources is likely to be local: helping to support bases, observatories, and spacecraft near the Moon, rather than shipping minerals back to Earth.
If Artemis II never touches the surface, what does it contribute scientifically? First, deep‑space missions are experiments in human biology. The crew will be exposed to higher radiation levels than on the International Space Station and to different psychological stresses, such as long communication delays and the experience of seeing Earth as a small, distant world. Sensors on their bodies and inside Orion will record how radiation, vibration, and noise affect their health and performance.
Second, Artemis II is an in‑flight laboratory for the spacecraft itself. Engineers will study how Orion’s heat shield behaves during a high‑energy re‑entry, how its electronics cope with solar storms, and how well new guidance, navigation, and life‑support hardware performs over ten continuous days in space. Every piece of data will feed into safer landings on Artemis III and beyond, much as the lessons of Apollo 8 and Apollo 10 made Apollo 11 possible.
Finally, the crew will carry a suite of small experiments and technology demonstrations. These may include improved radiation detectors, cameras, and communication systems and perhaps biological samples that experience the deep‑space environment alongside the astronauts. Even simple acts—such as photographing the Moon’s far side with modern sensors or watching how dust behaves inside the spacecraft—can refine our models and prepare us for operating habitats on the surface.
The Artemis program is not just about returning to a place we have already visited. NASA and its partners envision a small space station in lunar orbit, called Gateway, and a series of crewed landings that build up a semi-permanent presence near the South Pole. In turn, those outposts would act as test beds for technologies needed to go to Mars: closed‑loop life‑support systems, surface habitats, autonomous robots, and ways of using local resources instead of relying entirely on supplies from Earth.
For humanity as a whole, Artemis II is both a symbol and a tool. It symbolises that the era of human deep-space exploration did not end with Apollo; it merely paused. It also provides a practical way to test the machines, procedures, and international partnerships that will be needed if humans live and work sustainably beyond Earth. Whether the future brings scientific observatories in the lunar darkness, telescopes on the far side, or fuel depots feeding missions to Mars and the asteroids, Artemis II is the rehearsal that has to succeed before the real show can begin.
Shamim Haque Mondal is with the Physics Division, State Forensic Science Laboratory, Kolkata
Views expressed are the author’s own and don’t necessarily reflect those of Down To Earth