NASA’s Artemis II Mission Poised To Make History With Return To The Moon

The Artemis II mission is poised to mark a historic milestone, as humans prepare to return to the moon for the first time in over 50 years. Four astronauts are set to embark on a journey around the moon, a feat not achieved since the Apollo 17 astronauts returned to Earth in 1972. Planetary scientist Marie Henderson at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md., expressed her excitement, stating that this generation of lunar scientists gets to be part of the action.

The mission was initially slated for a February 6 launch but was delayed to March due to a leak in the system for filling the rocket’s tanks with liquid hydrogen propellant. The Artemis II mission will not land on the moon, but rather test the systems necessary for future exploration. Space historian Teasel Muir-Harmony, curator of the Apollo collection at the National Air and Space Museum in Washington, D. C., noted that the primary focus of the Apollo 8 mission was to reach the moon and orbit before the Russians. However, science plays a significant role in the Artemis II mission, with Henderson emphasizing that “science and exploration go hand-in-hand; we can’t do one without the other.” The mission aims to set the groundwork for a