ARTEMIS II
A JOURNEY BEYOND EARTH
FOUR HUMANS.
ONE HISTORIC FLIGHT.
For the first time since Apollo 17 in December 1972, humans ventured beyond low Earth orbit — flying around the Moon aboard NASA's Orion spacecraft atop the most powerful rocket ever flown.
T−MINUS
IGNITION. LIFTOFF.
WE HAVE LIFTOFF.
CLEARING
THE TOWER
8.8 million pounds of thrust. The world's most powerful rocket tears free of Earth — carrying four humans toward the Moon for the first time in over half a century.
LEAVING EARTH
BEHIND
MET
MET
MET
MET
THE MOON,
UP CLOSE.
THE FAR SIDE
Orion sweeps to within 7,400 km of the surface. For seven hours the crew photographs terrain no human eye has studied at such proximity in over fifty years.
COMING HOME
SPLASHDOWN
PACIFIC OCEAN · USS JOHN P. MURTHA
Four astronauts. Ten days. 384,000 kilometres from home — and back. Artemis II marks humanity's return to the Moon's vicinity for the first time in over half a century.
AD ASTRA
“We choose to go to the Moon in this decade and do the other things,
not because they are easy, but because they are hard.”
— JOHN F. KENNEDY · RICE UNIVERSITY · SEPTEMBER 12, 1962
COMMANDER: REID WISEMAN · PILOT: VICTOR GLOVER
MISSION SPECIALIST: JEREMY HANSEN · MISSION SPECIALIST: CHRISTINA KOCH
SLS BLOCK 1 + ORION MPCV · LC-39B · KENNEDY SPACE CENTER
PHOTOGRAPHY: NASA / CSA / PUBLIC DOMAIN