ANOTHER STEP FOR MAN

NASA Unveils Artemis II Spacecraft for Crewed Moon Orbit

The spacecraft began its first journey, a four-mile ground transport at NASA facilities.

NASA has unveiled its Artemis II spacecraft, Orion, which will soon carry a crew into orbit around the moon. Orion and its SLS rocket were rolled out at Kennedy Space Center in Florida on Saturday morning, then transported over to a launch pad. While it could take 12 hours to lug the craft the four miles to its launch site, once there, it could be put to use as early as February 6. Orion will hold four astronauts—Americans Christina Koch, Victor Glover, Reid Wiseman, and Canadian Jeremy Hansen—and take a journey lasting around 10 days. The first Artemis launch in 2022 had no crew, and this second iteration is expected to put NASA on track for a human moon landing in the near future. NASA administrator Jared Isaacman said of the mission: “Why are we doing this? We are doing this to fulfill a promise—a promise to the American people that we will return to the moon,” adding, “The architecture you see behind us here with SLS and the Orion spacecraft is just the beginning.”