The Artemis 2 mission began in the best possible way, also establishing several records. Record connections to the NASA website for live coverage of the launch. Here’s what will happen and when Artemis 3 and 4 will start
It was midnight and 35 minutes on April 2nd in Italy when the engines of the gigantic SLS rocket roared in Florida, causing even the seismographs positioned in California to move. But it Space Launch System it is NASA’s most powerful rocket and it is also a star: the US Space Agency’s online broadcast was followed by 48 million viewers. The more the further 400,000 who flocked to Florida’s Space Coast to witness the launch in person. As happened in the Sixties, to see a unique show to witness history. The commentary on television was also spectacular, which never dominated, but always explained, the original radio communications between the mission command and Artemis 2. And then there is the telemetry, which revealed acceleration, speed and altitude live.
The live broadcast will continue for the entire duration of the flight, approximately 10 dayseven if the 4 astronauts will not enter the lunar orbit, but will approach it and then exploit the light gravity of our satellite and return home. An impressive acceleration, less than a minute and the SLS was already supersonic where the air is increasingly thinner, the resistance decreases and so the speed increases more and more, until it allows that missile to be torn away from Earth’s gravity.
Derrol Nail, NASA spokesperson, said live: “We have liftoff! The Artemis 2 crew is now headed to the Moon, humanity’s next great journey begins.” And meanwhile those who watch learn new words like liftoff (take-off); nominal thrust, G-factor (acceleration) and more.
The crew and the records of the mission
Before climbing to the top of ramp 39B, the astronaut commanding the mission Reid Wisemanwho will be responsible for his colleagues for ten days Victor Glover (pilot); Christina Koch and Jeremy Hansen (mission specialists)with the psychological stability that characterizes a commander, said: “I have the best possible crew made up of astronauts from NASA and the Canadian Space Agency; we will do everything calmly and have the utmost trust in each other, and this is how we will get through it.”
No mention of the many firsts of this mission: It is the first time that a rocket Space Launch System (Sls) and the spaceship Orion they carry humans; it is the first launch of astronauts to the Moon of the 21st century; the first lunar mission with a woman on board; the first with a black astronaut and the first with a non-American man on board heading to the Moon American on the Moon.
But Dr. Koch, in front of journalists before leaving, downplayed: “Although there are reasons to celebrate a series of firsts; if there is something to celebrate, it is the fact that we live in an era in which anyone with a dream can work with the same dedication to achieve it.”
The distance record from Earth
The distance that Artemis 2 will travel from Earth also represents a record: by the time Orion completes its orbit around the dark side of the Moon, astronauts will move further from Earth than any other human being in history has done so far, according to 406,841 kilometers from Earthfurther than those who inevitably set the previous record, the astronauts of NASA’s Apollo 13 in 1970.
A noteworthy record, but NASA is now more focused on the busy program of activities planned for the crew during the trip around the Moon. Emily Nelson, Artemis 2 flight director, said: “Every mission is an opportunity to continue to explore and learn new things. Getting further from Earth than we’ve ever been before is cool, but there are many other things we’ll learn on this mission that will be much more exciting.”
Technology, trajectory and return to the Moon
A busy program of launches over the next two years.
About two minutes after liftoff, the SLS’s two powerful solid rocket boosters separated from the main stage, leaving the four engines RS-25 of the launcher to push Orion and his crew into space. They are the same engines used by the fleet of Space Shuttleof the type that has already supported the launch into orbit of 101 astronauts. In aerospace, what works is kept and exploited, so even some parts of the two solid rocket boosters flew on Shuttle missions.
Eight minutes after the explosion: the SLS of Artemis 2 reached Earth orbit and here, a few hours later, the upper stage of the rocket fired its engines twice to move further away, “raising the apogee” or the most distant point of the elliptical trajectory, and thus position the Orion spacecraft on the trajectory towards the Moon.
Artemis 2, in fact, is in many ways a 21st century version of the mission Apollo 8 which took the first astronauts around the Moon in 1968 and also marked the rocket’s first crewed flight Saturn V. And it was commanded precisely by that Jim Lovell who will find himself aboard the Odyssey of Apollo 13.
But on Orion there are no oxygen tanks to be mixed manually, the ones that caused the most famous problem for Houston, here everything is automatic and after a first day orbiting and accelerating around the Earth, from day 2 to 5 the four astronauts will travel towards the Moon; on the sixth day they will circumnavigate it and on the remaining three they will return to Earth, concluding the mission.
The new race to the Moon between politics and industry
Meanwhile, just over a week before the launch, the NASA administrator Jared Isaacman had unveiled ambitious changes to the Agency’s plan for lunar exploration, accelerating the pace of Artemis missions to land astronauts on the Moon by 2028 and then build a moon base by 2032.
Politics behind him: the Trump Administration’s desire to demonstrate American “space superiority”, as enshrined in an executive order of December 2025. “We will return the Americans to the Moon before the end of President Trump’s mandate”, declared Isaacman on March 24, ensuring compliance with the program which envisages following this mission Artemis 3 in 2027: a flight into Earth orbit to practice rendezvous and docking maneuvers with one or both of the commercial lunar modules that NASA has chosen for the Artemis program.
Meanwhile SpaceX is building a Starship lunar module for NASA while Blue Origin has designed its own Blue Moon lunar module and plans to test it within the next year. The first moon landings, with the Artemis missions 4 and 5, will follow from 2028.
