Rhiannon Ingle
Four astronauts were sent up to the moon for the eagerly anticipated Artemis II launch on Wednesday (1 April).
NASA astronauts Reid Wiseman, Victor Glover, and Christina Koch, along with Canadian Space Agency astronaut Jeremy Hansen, reached orbit ahead of circling the Earth for about 25 hours before catapulting towards the moon with the 10-day mission, paving the way for a future lunar landing and also laying the foundation to send a crew to Mars one day.
However, the crew won't actually be landing on the moon's surface when they get there - marking a noticeable difference between their mission and the last time the space agency sent astronauts to the moon as part of the Apollo 17 mission in 1972.
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We've got a few more years until the first moon landing of the Artemis programme, which is set to be no earlier than 2028.
The short answer as to why the moon landing isn't happening during this mission is that the programme isn't built to put Artemis II on the moon, per Space.com.
The Orion spacecraft the crew are travelling on doesn't have any landing capacity, with NASA opting for a staged testing approach before committing to a moon landing.
"Artemis II is NASA’s first mission with crew aboard our foundational deep space rocket, the SLS (Space Launch System), and Orion spacecraft and will confirm all the spacecraft’s systems operate as designed with crew aboard in the actual environment of deep space," NASA wrote in a mission description.
"The mission will pave the way for lunar surface missions, establishing long-term lunar science and exploration capabilities, and inspire the next generation of explorers."
Meanwhile, NASA Administrator Jared Isaacman said in a statement: "Artemis II is the start of something bigger than any one mission. It marks our return to the Moon, not just to visit, but to eventually stay on our Moon Base, and lays the foundation for the next giant leaps ahead."
And as for the crew's upcoming return?
Well, NASA explains that Orion will be pulled back naturally by Earth’s gravity for the free return portion of the mission.
"The crew will endure the high-speed, high-temperature reentry through Earth’s atmosphere before splashing down in the Pacific Ocean off the coast of San Diego, where they will be met by a recovery team of NASA and Department of Defense personnel who will bring them back to shore," the space agency writes.