CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. — NASA’s Artemis program focuses on the moon and Mars. Artemis I was a flight test.

Artemis II has a team of four astronauts aboard the Orion spacecraft to test the systems that will sustain crews on Artemis III and beyond.

While still in the elliptical orbit around Earth, the astronauts will check the spacecraft system, the life support systems, and the communication and navigation systems.

Astronauts will also practice emergency procedures, test the radiation shelter, participate in science experiments, and make observations of the moon.

VIEW GRAPHIC: Operations sequence

Priorities

According to NASA, here are the mission’s five priorities:

1. Demonstrate the ability of systems and teams to sustain the flight crew.
2. Demonstrate systems and operations essential to a crewed lunar campaign.
3. Retrieve flight hardware and data to assess performance for future missions.
4. Demonstrate emergency system capabilities
5. Verify subsystems and validate data.

Milestones

According to NASA, here are the mission’s milestones:

• Launch using more than 8.8 million pounds of thrust.
• As the rocket leaves the atmosphere, its solid Jettison Rocket Boosters will be discarded.
• The launch abort system will pull Orion and the crew to safety in the case of early ascent emergencies.
• The core stage will separate from the upper stage and Orion.
• When Orion reaches the highest point of its trajectory, the Interim Cryogenic Propulsion Stage, or ICPS, upper stage will fire its engine to raise its perigee to a safe altitude of 100 miles. Once this burn is complete, Orion and the ICPS will be in a stable low-Earth orbit.
• ICPS will fire again roughly an hour later, this time at the perigee of its orbit, to continue raising Orion into a high Earth orbit. This begins a roughly 23-hour checkout of the spacecraft, while Orion and its astronauts are still relatively close to Earth.
• Once the ICPS has done its job, it will separate from Orion and be repurposed as a target for a proximity operations demonstration test – an opportunity for the crew to verify they can safely pilot Orion in manual mode.
• With proximity operations complete, the crew will use Orion’s orbital maneuvering system engine to move away from the ICPS and make additional observations of the upper stage as it gets farther away. About 15 minutes later, the ICPS will perform its own disposal burn, setting it on a path to reenter the Earth’s atmosphere and burn up over the Pacific Ocean.
• At the end of Flight Day 1, the crew will be awakened to perform an additional engine firing to get Orion into the correct orbital geometry for its translunar injection burn on Flight Day 2.
• The translunar injection burn is the last major engine firing of the mission. It propels Orion on a path toward the Moon and sets it on the free-return trajectory that will ultimately bring crew back to Earth for splashdown. Though only two days into the mission, it essentially doubles as Orion’s deorbit burn, as well.
• Three smaller outbound trajectory correction burns using Orion’s orbital maneuvering system engine over the course of the next three days will ensure the spacecraft stays on target for its journey around the Moon. Just before the crew goes to sleep on Flight Day 5, they’ll enter the lunar sphere of influence, where the pull of the Moon’s gravity will become stronger than the pull of the Earth’s gravity.
• Exactly how close the Artemis II crew will fly to the Moon will depend on when they launch. The Moon will be in a different spot for each of the possible launch dates, and the exact distance will change accordingly, ranging from 4,000 to 6,000 miles above the lunar surface. This is farther from the Moon than Artemis I’s 80 miles above the surface, but still tens of thousands of miles closer than any human has been in more than 50 years. At this distance the Moon will appear to the crew to be about the size of a basketball held at arm’s length.
• The closest the crew will come to the lunar surface will be when Orion flies behind the Moon. At this point, the crew will lose communication with the Earth for anywhere from 30-50 minutes, depending on when they launched. During that time, they will be taking photos and video of the Moon’s far side and making observations to be shared with scientists on the ground after they regain communication.
• After Orion swings around the far side of the Moon and exits the lunar sphere of influence, its fuel-efficient free return trajectory will harness the Earth-Moon gravity field to pull Orion back to Earth naturally. As on the journey to the Moon, three small return trajectory correction burns along the way will ensure the crew is set up for a safe splashdown. The last of the trio of burns takes place on Flight Day 10, five hours before entry interface, once the crew has begun working through their preparations for coming home.
• With its work done, Orion’s service module, containing the engines responsible for the burns that steer the spacecraft and propel it through space, will separate from the crew module. This exposes the crew module’s heat shield, which will protect the astronauts through the heat of reentry. The service module will then be allowed to burn up in the Earth’s atmosphere. 
• The crew module’s reaction control system engines will steer the heatshield into the direction of travel to prepare for peak heating. While still 400,000 feet – almost 76 miles – above Earth, Orion will begin to feel the effects of the Earth’s atmosphere for the first time since launch. Within a matter of seconds, superheated plasma will begin to build up around the spacecraft as the friction of the surrounding atmosphere increases. Orion will experience temperatures around 3,000 degrees Fahrenheit, and communications with the crew will be temporarily blocked by the plasma.
• Once Orion has made it through the heat of reentry, the cover that has been protecting its forward bay is cast off to make way for the parachutes to deploy and begin slowing Orion down. Two drogue parachutes, each 23 feet in diameter, will unfurl at an altitude of 25,000 feet and slow the capsule down to 307 mph. At 9,500 feet, three 11-foot-wide pilot parachutes will deploy to pull the final three main parachutes. The 116-foot-wide main parachutes slow Orion from about 130 mph to just 17 mph for splashdown.
• The crew module may land upright, upside down, or on its side. Once in the water, a system of five orange airbags will inflate around the top of the spacecraft and flip the capsule into an upright position, so that the crew can safely exit.

Ascent and Mission Timeline

+00:09 SLS clears the launch tower and initiates a roll/pitch maneuver

+00:56 SLS reaches supersonic speed

+01:10 Maximum dynamic pressure

+02:08 Solid Rocket Booster separation

+03:18 Launch abort system jettison

+08:06 SLS core stage main engine cutoff

+08:18 Core stage separates from ICPS (1381×17-mile orbit)

+08:28 ICPS RL10 nozzle extension

+20:00 Orion solar arrays deploy

+49:00 perigee raise maneuver (1381×115 statute miles)

At this point, Orion and ICPS are in a safe orbit

+01:47:57 Apogee raise burn (43730×0 statute miles)

Orion is now in a high Earth orbit that will last through the translunar injection

+03:24:15 Orion separates from ICPS, proximity operations demonstration begins

+04:35 – Proximity operations conclude

+04:52 Orion upper stage separation burn

+05:00 Disposal burn of ICPS into the Pacific Ocean

+05:02 – ICPS disposal burn, setting the ICPS up for a splashdown in the Atlantic Ocean

+05:04 CubeSats deploy at one minute intervals

+0/13:44 – Perigee raise burn

Starting here, each entry represents elapsed time since liftoff, as in 1/01:42 representing 1 day, 1 hour, 42 minutes.

Flight Day 2

+1/01:37 Translunar injection burn

+1/23:25 Orbital Trajectory Correction Burn

Flight Day 3

+2/00:07 – Orbital trajectory correction burn #1

+2/02:05 – Crew CPR demonstration

+2/05:25 – Communications test through Deep Space Network

Flight Day 4

+3/00:12 – Orbital trajectory correction burn #2

+3/03:40 and +3/05:45 – Review lunar flyby imaging plan (in two shifts)

Flight Day 5

+3/20:30 – Rapid spacesuits donning and pressurization demonstration

+4/05:23 – Orbital trajectory correction burn #3

+4/06:59 – Orion enters lunar sphere of influence

Flight Day 6

+04/22:00 – Lunar flyby and observation begins

+5/01:23 Closest approach to the Moon

+5/01:26 – Crew reaches maximum distance from Earth for this mission

Flight Day 7

Flight Day 7 will primarily be off duty time for the crew

+5/19:47 – Orion exits lunar sphere of influence

+5/21:10 – Lunar flyby science debrief

+6/04:23 – Return trajectory correction burn #1

Flight Day 8

+7/01:50 – Radiation shielding demonstration

+07/04:20 – Manual piloting demonstration

Flight Day 9

+7/23:15 and +8/02:10 – Orthostatic intolerance garment assessment (in two shifts)

+8/04:33 – Return trajectory correction burn #2

Flight Day 10

+8/20:33 – Return trajectory correction burn #3

+8/22:30 – Crew begins working through entry checklist, including donning entry suits

+9/01:13 – Orion crew and service module separation

+9/01:16 – Crew module raise burn

+9/01:33 – Entry interface, while still 400,000 feet above Earth

The following milestones take place as Orion reaches specific altitudes:

• Forward bay cover deploys at an altitude of less than 36,000 feet
• Drogue parachutes deploy at 25,000 feet in altitude
• Pilot parachutes deploy at 9,500 feet in altitude and pull out the three main parachute

+9/01:46 – Splashdown

Post Splashdown

+9/01:53 – Crew module reaction control system safing

+9/02:01 – Orion Final power down

Following splashdown, the crew will be on the recovery ship within two hours.

More on Artemis II

• Get to know the four Artemis II astronauts
• WATCH IT: Artemis II moon flyby mission launch
• Artemis II moon mission set to launch from Cape Canaveral
• Artemis II astronauts arrive at Florida launch site for first moon trip in 53 years
• Apollo’s impatient old-timers are rooting for NASA’s return to the moon with Artemis II launch

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