NASA is looking towards the Artemis III mission next year to test spacecraft docking, after the successful conclusion of Artemis II following the crew’s return to Earth.
The Orion capsule, launched on 1 April with a four-person crew, completed a 10-day programme to travel around the Moon – reaching a distance of more than 406,770km from Earth at its farthest point.
It splashed down in the Pacific Ocean at 17:07PDT on 10 April and the crew was transported via helicopter to the support ship USS John P Murtha for medical assessment.
NASA says Orion, carried on the Space Launch System, travelled a total distance of nearly 1.118 million km.
“As the first astronauts to fly this rocket and spacecraft, the crew accepted significant risk in service of the knowledge gained and the future we are determined to build,” says NASA administrator Jared Isaacman.
“With Artemis II complete, focus now turns confidently toward assembling Artemis III and preparing to return to the lunar surface, build the base, and never give up the Moon again.”
Artemis III will launch another Orion spacecraft with the aim of testing rendezvous and docking capabilities between the capsule and commercial lander spacecraft – developed by SpaceX or Blue Origin – required to land astronauts on the Moon.
NASA says the specific details on Artemis III will be disclosed closer to the 2027 launch date.
The Artemis II crew, comprising Reid Wiseman, Victor Glover, Christina Koch and Jeremy Hansen, surpassed the distance record set by the astronauts of Apollo 13 during its aborted Moon landing attempt in 1970.
“Entry, descent, and landing systems performed as designed and the final test was completed as intended,” says NASA associate administrator Amit Kshatriya.
“This moment belongs to the thousands of people across 14 countries who built, tested, and trusted this vehicle.”
Kshatriya adds that the Artemis II mission “proved” the vehicle, teams, architecture and international partnership that will “return humanity to the lunar surface”.
The crew tested Orion’s life-support systems as part of the mission, confirming the capsule can sustain humans in deep space, and also took manual piloting control to validate its handling perfomance.
This will assist with the future docking operations with landers intended to be tested during the upcoming Artemis III programme.
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