NASA recently launched its Artemis II mission, marking the first crewed voyage beyond low Earth orbit since Apollo 17 in 1972. The agency has described Artemis II as “the first crewed lunar flyby in more than 50 years”.
In the words of NASA administrator Jared Isaacman, the mission is about “returning humanity to the Moon for the first time in more than 50 years and opening the next chapter of lunar exploration beyond Apollo”.
According to NASA, December 1972’s Apollo 17 remains the last lunar landing mission, and Artemis II marks the end of a five‑decade hiatus in human Moon voyages. The 10-day test flight will carry four astronauts around the Moon and back to Earth. While it will not attempt a landing, the mission represents a symbolic and operational step towards restoring human presence in lunar space, echoing the ambitions of the Apollo era.
Artemis II is fundamentally a shakedown flight for new technology. As NASA explains, among its objectives the mission will “demonstrate life support systems for the first time with crew and lay the foundation for an enduring presence on the Moon ahead of future missions to Mars”.
The mission will evaluate the performance of the Orion spacecraft’s life-support, propulsion, power and navigation systems under real conditions. During the flight, four astronauts will pilot the capsule in Earth orbit, rehearse rendezvous procedures, and then travel approximately 46,000 miles beyond Earth before looping around the Moon.
Data gathered during the mission is expected to inform subsequent phases of the Artemis programme. These include docking operations with lunar landers and, ultimately, a crewed landing near the Moon’s south pole. NASA has indicated that these objectives are targeted for Artemis III in 2027 and Artemis IV in 2028.
NASA’s timeline is also shaped by geopolitical considerations. At a recent press conference, the agency pointed to “credible competition from our greatest geopolitical adversary” – widely interpreted as China – as a factor driving urgency within the programme.
In recent years China has achieved multiple uncrewed lunar landings and announced plans to send its own taikonauts – another name for Chinese astronauts – to the Moon by the end of the decade. For NASA, returning to the Moon is as much about maintaining leadership in space as it is about science.
Beyond geopolitical and technological motivations, the Moon itself remains a subject of scientific interest. Contrary to earlier assumptions, research over the past decade has suggested that the lunar surface contains water and other volatile compounds.
“NASA missions like Lunar Prospector and the Lunar Crater Observation and Sensing Satellite and instruments like M3 have gathered crucial data that fundamentally changed our understanding of whether water exists on the surface of the Moon,” said S. Pete Worden, who was then the director of NASA’s Ames Research Centre in Moffett Field, California, in 2013.
According to NASA, samples returned during the Apollo missions had already indicated traces of water, while more recent orbital studies have identified ice deposits in permanently shadowed craters. These resources could prove essential for future missions, as water can be used for drinking and broken down into oxygen and hydrogen for life support and fuel.
Scientists also view the Moon as a geological archive. With no atmosphere or plate tectonics to alter its surface, it preserves a record of billions of years of impacts, offering insight into the early history of the solar system.
