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by Luca Fontana
NASA mission "Artemis II": first manned journey to the moon in over 50 years
2.4.2026
Translation: machine translated
Space is calling again! More than 53 years after Apollo, humans are flying to the moon again for the first time. "Artemis II" has been launched and is intended to show whether the technology and crew are ready for missions beyond Earth.
On the night of 2 April 2026, a rocket lifted off from Launch Complex 39B at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida, making history. At 0:35 am Central European Time, the engines of the Space Launch System ignited and four astronauts set off for the moon for the first time in over half a century. The NASA mission «Artemis II» has taken off.
The date carries weight: the last person to set foot on the Earth's satellite was Eugene Cernan in December 1972 on board «Apollo 17». Since then, the moon has remained a destination that mankind has only looked at from afar. Now, more than 53 years later, that is changing.
We have a beautiful moonrise, we're heading straight for it.
The crew of the «Artemis II»
On board the Orion capsule are four astronauts, whose composition was deliberately chosen by NASA.
Source: NASA
Commander Reid Wiseman, a retired US Navy captain, leads the mission. Pilot Victor Glover is the first black astronaut to fly to the moon. Mission specialist Christina Koch is the first woman ever to fly to the moon. And Canadian Jeremy Hansen is the first non-American in the history of manned lunar travel. For him, it is also the first space flight ever.
What this mission actually does
The question at the centre of the mission is: will the system work under real conditions with people on board?
The mission is deliberately not a landing flight. Instead, the crew in the Orion capsule will orbit the moon on a characteristic figure-eight-shaped trajectory and return to Earth after around ten days. What seems unspectacular at first glance is actually a crucial endurance test for manned space travel beyond the Earth's orbit.
During the flight, all critical systems are tested under real conditions: the life support system, the navigation software, communication over extreme distances and the ability to control the spacecraft manually. The distance is particularly challenging: on the sixth day of the flight, Orion reaches its furthest point: more than 400,000 kilometres from Earth. This means that the mission even surpasses the record set by the «Apollo 13» crew in 1970 (400,171 kilometres).
A special moment awaits the astronauts on the far side of the moon. There, radio contact with Earth is briefly lost. This will be a planned but impressive state of complete isolation.
With humans on board, the requirements increase considerably compared to unmanned tests. The Orion's heat shield is the main focus: it has to withstand temperatures of up to 2,800 degrees Celsius on re-entry into the Earth's atmosphere. The power supply, control system and life support are also pushed to their limits.
The mission is being carried by the Space Launch System (SLS), one of the most powerful rockets ever built. It combines enormous carrying capacity with absolute reliability, as even the smallest errors could have serious consequences in manned flight.
Technology from Germany carries the mission
Europe - and Germany in particular - is playing a key role in «Artemis II». The centrepiece of the Orion capsule is the European Service Module (ESM): it supplies the astronauts with propulsion, electricity, water and oxygen. It is built and assembled at Airbus Defence and Space in Bremen, with components from eleven European countries.
Source: NASA
In addition, the German Aerospace Centre (DLR) is contributing four advanced radiation detectors. The M-42 EXT devices measure the cosmic radiation between the Earth and the Moon with unrivalled resolution. Central components of the star navigation system also come from Germany, more precisely from Jena. And the Berlin satellite Tacheles, developed by the start-up Neurospace, is testing electronic components for future moon rovers under real radiation conditions in the Van Allen belt.
A bumpy road to the launch pad
The launch on 2 April was anything but a foregone conclusion. NASA had originally planned «Artemis II» for September 2025. This was followed by one postponement after another: Problems with the Orion capsule's heat shield - discovered after the unmanned «Artemis I» mission of 2022 - forced extensive investigations and an adjusted re-entry trajectory. During the dress rehearsal in February 2026, too much liquid hydrogen leaked from the system during the refuelling test and the countdown was aborted. Further problems with the helium flow and the batteries followed.
The final evening of the launch did not go entirely smoothly either: ten minutes before the scheduled time, Mission Control briefly stopped the countdown because sensor data showed an anomaly. Shortly after lift-off, the voice connection between the crew and the ground station also broke down: The astronauts could hear Houston, but Houston could not hear the astronauts. The problem was quickly resolved. Nine minutes after the launch, Orion reached Earth orbit as planned, and 26 minutes after the launch, the ESM's solar panels deployed.
Looking ahead: Moon, Mars and a race
«Artemis II» is the second step of a larger programme. «Artemis I» tested the system unmanned in 2022. The next key milestone is «Artemis III»: for the first time since the Apollo era, astronauts are to land on the moon again. A mission to the South Pole is planned, a previously unexplored region that is considered to be of particular scientific and technological relevance due to possible water ice deposits.
NASA is also pressing ahead with the construction of the Gateway lunar space station with «Artemis IV». It is intended to serve as a long-term infrastructure in lunar orbit: as a transshipment centre for land missions and as a platform for research and preparation for future missions in deep space.
The moon is not a final destination, but an intermediate step. The technologies developed and tested there will later pave the way for manned missions to Mars. At the same time, the programme is also gaining geopolitical weight, not least due to parallel ambitions from China.
Header image: NASA
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