The US space agency NASA has completed preparations of the Orion super rocket along with the SLS launch vehicle for the Artemis program's first manned mission to the moon. The agency reported this on its page on the social network X.
“We are just weeks away from the start of the second Artemis II mission, which will take astronauts around the Moon, farther than any crew has ever flown,” the publication said.
NASA said four astronauts will begin a 10-day flight around the moon to test systems that would allow humans to return to the lunar surface in the future as part of the Artemis III mission.
In addition, the crew will test the operation of the Orion spacecraft system: manual control, capsule landing. NASA said the astronauts will also serve as test subjects for deep space medical research.
The first phase of the Artemis lunar mission, during which the flight was carried out, lasted less than 26 days – the heavy SLS rocket together with the Orion spacecraft launched from Cape Canaveral on November 16, 2022, becoming the first launch in 50 years of a ship capable of carrying people to the earth's satellite.
The Artemis program was approved in 2017; The Orion manned spacecraft itself was developed in the early 2000s for the previous US lunar mission, Constellation.
