The Artemis campaign is aimed at building a long-term human presence on the moon, to serve as a stepping-stone for the onward exploration of Mars. Artemis II will take crew to the moon next year for the first time since Nasa\u2019s first lunar exploration programme, Apollo, ended 53 years ago.<\/p>\n
Wiseman, 49, along with his Nasa crewmates, Victor Glover and Christina Koch, as well as the Canadian space agency astronaut Jeremy Hansen, will spend ten days aboard the Orion spacecraft, which will launch on Nasa\u2019s SLS rocket.<\/p>\n
![\"Illustration](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/\/42a7bb94-cde3-4472-88ad-cfd88bf6f657.jpg\")
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Nasa\u2019s Orion spacecraft<\/p>\n
NASA\/ESA\/ATG MEDIALAB<\/p>\n
They will test its handling qualities, life support systems, communication and navigation capabilities, do a flyby of the moon on the sixth day and fulfil a packed science schedule.<\/p>\n
Nasa announced this week that the mission could launch as soon as February next year<\/a>, two months earlier than previously targeted. The follow-on mission, Artemis III, aims to put crew on the lunar surface in 2027, but the lander being developed by SpaceX is far from ready and China is breathing down Nasa\u2019s neck.<\/p>\n Jim Bridenstine, the former head of Nasa, warned a congressional committee this month that it was \u201chighly unlikely\u201d that the US and its international partners could beat China \u201cunless something changes\u201d.<\/p>\n \u2022 A bad moon rising \u2014 what if China beats US back to lunar surface?<\/a><\/p>\n But Sean Duffy, the acting head of Nasa, told a meeting with staff days later: \u201cI\u2019ll be damned if that\u2019s the story we write.\u201d<\/p>\n Speaking at Nasa\u2019s Johnson Space Center in Houston this week, Duffy added: \u201cSome are challenging our leadership in space, say like the Chinese \u2026 We love competition and we are going to win the second space race back to the moon.\u201d<\/p>\n The Artemis II crew prefer to stress the international collaboration that has gone into their mission.<\/p>\n \u201cWe\u2019re just going to pursue excellence \u2026 that\u2019s how you win a space race and that\u2019s just how you move our countries forward. More importantly, that\u2019s how you create an environment where you might encourage others to collaborate,\u201d Glover, 49, the mission pilot, said.<\/p>\n The Space Launch System rocket carrying an Orion spacecraft on the maiden flight of Nasa\u2019s Artemis programme in 2022<\/p>\n JOE MARINO\/UPI \/ALAMY<\/p>\n Selected for the mission in 2022, they have spent the last two and a half years training to the point that they are like family, with an implicit trust in one another and intuitive teamwork. As they loop around the far side of the moon, the crew of Artemis II will lose communication with mission control. For 45 minutes, they will be entirely disconnected from their home planet: no radio link, no sight line to Earth.<\/p>\n \u201cI would love it if the entire world, those eight billion people, could come together and, you know, just be hoping and praying for us to get that acquisition of signal and be back in touch with everybody,\u201d Glover said.<\/p>\n \u201cIf we had the ability to be one thing for one moment, that would remind us when things get tough. It won\u2019t fix everything, but it would be a reminder, a data point that we all share, that we can do challenging and very big and very important things when we work together.\u201d<\/p>\n They have rehearsed over and over in a cockpit simulator, where instructors put them through a relentless series of what the commander calls \u201cevil\u201d scenarios.<\/p>\n \u201cWe\u2019ll be sitting in the sim, all our mission controllers are in mission control and then stuff will just start breaking. You\u2019re like: \u2018Oh come on, really. That?\u2019 \u2014 and then we\u2019ll just have to see what we can create to come home, kind of Apollo 13 style,\u201d Wiseman said.<\/p>\n \u2022 Jim Lovell, Apollo 13 commander, dies aged 97<\/a><\/p>\n He and Glover were Navy test pilots before selection to Nasa\u2019s astronaut corps; Wiseman in 2009 and Glover in 2013. Glover\u2019s call sign \u2014 assigned to him by one of his early military commanders \u2014 is Ike, standing for \u201cI know everything\u201d.<\/p>\n Wiseman, Glover, Koch and Hansen in 2023<\/p>\n NASA\/FRANK MICHAUX<\/p>\n Koch, 46, an engineer and explorer, spent a year at the South Pole as a research associate and holds the record for the longest single spaceflight by a female astronaut: 328 days. Hansen, 49, also a former military test pilot, is the only member to have never flown in space.<\/p>\n \u201cIn the sim, when we entered that loss of signal there is something so serene about that moment. It\u2019s almost \u2026 heavenly. You\u2019re alone, four of you, totally blocked from planet Earth by the moon and the only thing on the other side is deep space,\u201d Wiseman said.<\/p>\n \u201cI cannot wait to experience that loss of signal and then acquisition of signal and seeing Earth rise. It\u2019s just gonna be ridiculous \u2026 and wow, yeah, if we could get the whole world together for just a minute.\u201d<\/p>\n Orion will take the crew beyond and around the moon, nearly 250,000 miles (402,335km) from Earth \u2014 potentially reaching the furthest humans have travelled<\/a> into deep space. Their top speed will be more than 25,000mph.<\/p>\n Wiseman\u2019s daughters, Ellie and Katherine, were young teenagers when their mother died. They have some reservations about their father\u2019s lunar journey.<\/p>\n He said: \u201cIt\u2019s a really risky mission and that weighs on me pretty hard, for me to say goodbye to those two girls when we go aboard this rocket. They\u2019d rather I not go, right? But \u2026 I\u2019m not gonna give up something that means a lot to me because it will mean more to them that I continue to pursue these dreams.\u201d<\/p>\n![\"The](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/\/ff01afec-7e06-428b-a1f8-96157e27b1a3.jpg\")
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