Sunday, 11 January 2026

Artemis 2

Artemis 1 sent an uncrewed capsule to and from lunar orbit, Artemis 2 will send a manned crew around the Moon and pave the way for Artemis 3 which will see humanity back on the Moon for the first time since 1972 and most excitedly, pave the way for a permanent base on the Moon.
The second Artemis Mission is penciled in from anytime between February 6th and April 6th pending any problems after they start testing the rocket on January 17th which is when they wheel it out to the launch pad and rigorously put it through it's paces before they allow four humans to sit atop 733,000 gallons of fuel, ignite it and send it upwards at 24,500 mph.  
Even if it does pass all it's pre-launch checks, there is still the weather to worry about which is why NASA have given 15 different dates between February and April so it ultimately could be down to Mother Nature if a leaky fuel pipe doesn't mess it all up as it did with Artemis 1 which pushed back the whole program as Artemis 2 was penciled in to launch September 2025.   
Though it won't land on or even enter orbit around Earth's nearest neighbor, Artemis 2 is a test that all of the spacecraft’s systems operate as designed with crew aboard in the actual environment of deep space and if that goes well, will see humans bouncing around on the Lunar surface again although NASA will only give the date for that as no earlier than 2027 and the reason for the vagueness is that Space X, who were tasked with designing the upper stage to carry the astronauts to the surface, are having issues with their design.
If NASA doesn't make it then the Chinese are seemingly full steam ahead for planting the flag of the People's Republic of China in the Moon dust in 2030 and their own moon base when their own human landing mission lands which is penciled in on President Xi's Calendar for 2030.
I have always thought it was absurd that we just stopped after 1972 and didn't build on what we knew then and start building moon bases and using the Moon as a launch pad for further exploration but after waiting over 50 years to go back, hopefully we are back into the Space Age again although i'm still hoping that someone can get the Asteroid Redirect Mission (ARM) going again which would see us grab an asteroid, tow it along and place it in orbit about the moon, because our own pet Asteroid would be really cool.