Artemis 2

Artemis 2

Artist's concept of the SLS Block 1 in flight.
Mission type	Crewed lunar flyby
Operator	NASA
Spacecraft properties
Spacecraft type	Orion MPCV
Start of mission
Launch date	2023 (planned)
Launch site	Kennedy LC-39B
End of mission
Landing site	Pacific Ocean
---- Artemis program ← Artemis 1 Artemis 3 →

Artemis 2 (previously known as Exploration_Mission_2 or EM-2), is a scheduled 2023 mission of the Space Launch System planned to be the first crewed mission of NASA's Orion spacecraft.

Originally, the crewed mission was intended to collect samples from a captured asteroid in lunar orbit by the now cancelled robotic Asteroid Redirect Mission. The current plan is for a crewed Orion spacecraft to perform a lunar flyby test and return to Earth. This will be the first crewed spacecraft to leave low Earth orbit since Apollo 17 in 1972.

Mission objectives

Previous

See also: Asteroid Redirect Mission and Asteroid capture

Until 2017, Artemis 2 was a projected single-launch mission of a Space Launch System Block IB with an Exploration Upper Stage, lunar Block 1 Orion Multi-Purpose Crew Vehicle (MPCV), and a payload insertion of 50.7 t. The plan was to rendezvous with an asteroid previously placed in lunar orbit by the robotic Asteroid Redirect Mission and have astronauts perform space-walks and gather samples. After the cancellation of the Asteroid Redirect Mission, it was proposed in 2017 to fly an eight-day mission with a crew of four astronauts, sent on a free return trajectory around the Moon. Another proposal suggested in 2017 was to take four astronauts aboard Orion on an 8-to-21-day trip around the Moon to deliver the first element of the Lunar Orbital Platform-Gateway (LOP-G).

Current

Artemis 2 will send 4 astronauts a total of 1,090,320km over 9 days and have a re-entry speed of 24,500 mph (mach 32)

In March 2018 it was decided to launch the first Lunar Gateway module on a commercial launch vehicle because of delays in building the mobile launch platform needed to hold the more powerful 'Exploration Upper Stage'. As of 2018, the Artemis 2 mission plan is to send four astronauts in the first crewed Orion capsule into a lunar flyby for a maximum of 21 days. The mission profile is a multi-translunar injection (MTLI), or multiple departure burns, and includes a free return trajectory from the Moon. Basically, the spacecraft will orbit Earth twice while periodically firing its engines to build up enough velocity to push it toward the Moon before looping back to Earth.

Similar missions

An earlier (First Crewed, 2016) proposal for a manned, free-return Orion mission to the Moon's sphere of influence, similar to the trajectory of Apollo 8, with the addition of a HEO intermediate step. No Moon landing is involved and the reentry is direct.

In 1968, the Apollo 8 mission, crewed by 3 astronauts, was designed to test-fly a Command/Service Module beyond low Earth orbit. Although similar to Artemis 2 in that it was crewed and did not land on the Moon, it differed by entering lunar orbit for an extended stay.

In 2005, the company Space Adventures announced plans to take two tourists within 100 km (62 mi) of the lunar surface using a Soyuz spacecraft piloted by a professional cosmonaut. The mission, named DSE-Alpha, has been priced at US$150 million per seat and is expected to last 8–9 days when scheduled. Company CEO Eric Anderson stated in 2011 that one seat had been sold, but the launch date has continually slipped since the second seat remains unsold as of 2017.

A SpaceX lunar tourism mission was initially proposed for late 2018 and would have been similar to Artemis 2 in crew size, with two space tourists paying for a free-return loop around the Moon and back to Earth, using the Crew Dragon capsule and launched on the Falcon Heavy. After the first flight of Falcon Heavy in 2018, SpaceX announced that Falcon Heavy would not be used for crewed flights to focus their future development on BFR and indicated that the lunar mission would more likely be carried out with the BFR system. On September 14, 2018, SpaceX officially announced that it had signed one of the paying passengers, Yusaku Maezawa, for the mission using the BFR, now rescheduled for 2023, and that he would invite 6 to 8 artists to join him.