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April 6: flyby
April 10: splashdown
After that, the exciting work will be in Starship making LEO and testing propellant transfer (a humanity first) [1] and Blue Origin testing its rocket and lunar lander [2], both scheduled for 2026, to enable Artemis II (EDIT: III), currently scheduled—optimistically, in my opinion—for next year.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Starship_launches#Futu...
[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blue_Moon_Pathfinder_Mission_1
Starship "making LEO" is not a significant challenge--the existing flights have explicitly targeted a (very slightly) suborbital trajectory. They could have done otherwise at any point, but for now it's more important to guarantee that the stage comes down immediately. None of their current objectives require more than ~1/2 of an orbit.
Starship v3 flying will be a significant leap, though. It's the first with the Raptor v3 engines and has many other improvements as well, such as updated grid fins and hot staging ring. It will be the first that achieves close to the intended capacity of ~100 tons.
Propellant transfer is indeed a significant challenge. They have already demonstrated internal transfers between tanks, but not between spacecraft.
Very exciting times ahead!
>> Starship making LEO and testing propellant transfer (a humanity first)
No. We have to stop listing to AI and twitter idiots trying to upsell stories into "firsts". The first propellant transfer, the first refueling of a spacecraft on orbit, was by the soviets nearly 50 years ago.
"Progress 1 was the first of twelve Progress spacecraft used to supply the Salyut 6 space station between 1978 and 1981.[6] Its payload of 2,300 kilograms (5,100 lb) consisted of 1,000 kilograms (2,200 lb) of propellant and oxygen, as well as 1,300 kilograms (2,900 lb) of food, replacement parts, scientific instruments, and other supplies. Whilst Progress 1 was docked, the EO-1 crew, consisting of cosmonauts Yuri Romanenko and Georgi Grechko, was aboard the station. Progress 1 demonstrated the capability to refuel a spacecraft on orbit, critical for long-term station operations.[11] Once the cosmonauts had unloaded the cargo delivered by Progress 1, they loaded refuse onto the freighter for disposal."
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Progress_1
If SpaceX wants a first, then it would be the first transfer of cryogenic fuel. But even that could be debated as arguably Shuttle "transferred" cryogenic fuel between the tank and the orbiter during the launch process. So SpaceX might get the first of (cryogenic + on-orbit). Any simplification is a denial of what has already been done.
I think you meant Artemis III in your comment. Good info though, didn't realize they were relying on those two other projects for the next one.
This mission is Artemis II. Is Artemis III the one with a lander?
HLS isn't going anywhere.
They still need to prove that they can fire 33 of them in parallel reliable.
Time will show, plenty of ignorant decisions from Musk inbetween so yeah...
Starship is just obscene. The thing is never going to work for its designed purpose once you understand what the mission looks like (basically insane amount of refuel dockings while the thing is in orbit)
I will be watching the launch from Europe, so it will be not earlier than half past midnight for us. My kids (9 and 10) are sleeping on the couch in front of the projection screen, so that they do not even have to get up when I wake them up at midnight, which I promised.
Just wanted to add my grain of positivity here. Godspeed Artemis 2!
> add my grain of positivity
The best of science, reason, research, engineering, training, expertise, co-operation...
The best of humanity. Le meilleur de l'humanité.
Even though you could question the whole Artemis concept, it's still extremely exciting watching the countdown with my son. I just missed the original Apollo flights and had assumed I would never see a moon landing in my lifetime. We may well not have a landing for quite some time yet, but it's still cool to see a Moon bound rocket standing on the launchpad...
Minutes after launch they reached "ten thousand miles per hour". That's 2.78 miles per second. Nuts. No doubt the speeds go even higher later too.
I'm sure people here are already familiar with the speeds these things go, but that's the first time I've confronted a fact like that and it blew me away.
It is a bit chilling to watch these astronaut profiles having just read yesterday about the heat shield issues observed on the prior mission, and that this will be the first time we can test the heat shield in the actual pressures and temperatures that it will have to endure.
Godspeed crew of Artemis II.
Fingers crossed that this https://idlewords.com/2026/03/artemis_ii_is_not_safe_to_fly.... doesn't have any effect.
After spending years as a kid seeing footage of these things on TV outside living outside of America, I finally got to see it live!
Brought my camera and got a few good pics too! Very invested in this entire mission!
Someone behind me kept whisper crying "That's it! Go baby, go baby go" like it was his child and was encouraging them on. Very emotional, loved it.
Also when that engine sparked it really hit me just how many hours of deep thought and technical innovation goes not only into getting us as humanity to that point, but also the crews at NASA planning, building and executing these missions
The politicization of everything and constant doomerish on here sure has echoes of early 2000s Slashdot. That's not a compliment. Reading the comments here is actually depressing. Human progress is never all at once, we can't even celebrate this triumph? Life is almost never "one or the other," the program could be scrapped to a junk yard and that wouldn't solve global hunger or global conflicts. Setting human eyes forward is good.
Direct livestream link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tf_UjBMIzNo
watched this with teary eyes. it truly shows what we can do when we come together and challenge ourselves for the greater good of humanity.
"We have a beautiful moon rise, we're heading right at it" got me a little choked up. Here's to the ever unfolding adventure of mankind.
You're supposed to have peanuts, not popcorn, tonight:
https://science.nasa.gov/missions/what-are-jpls-lucky-peanut...
Found a stream on YouTube earlier (which presumably wasn't an official one because it disappeared 15 minutes later after a claim by "FUBO TV") and it had a poll attached: "Will the Artemis astronauts land on the moon?"
40% of people had voted yes. Which is somewhat worrying given the mission plan and hardware.
Regardless of whether this particular mission is perfectly planned, this is precisely the kind of thing that will help humanity outgrow the dark age of war, inequality and climate mismanagement.
It is a noble endeavor - science, engineering and peaceful exploration hold the keys to our survival and prosperity.
It is also important psychologically to our survival - a reminder there is a bigger pie, that we can solve hard problems, that progress can be made, that competence and education counts, as does courage, and that we can work together for a common cause.
This is the best of America, and for a while we can be proud of the human race.
The SpaceX cameras of live launches are way better. This NASA stream is mostly all computer generated art after the initial pad launch. Hardly any live space feeds from the ship.
Does anyone know of a good status tracker for the mission? I'm watching the official feed on Youtube and it's great for commentary but I'd love a live Kerbal-style UI I could poke around.
I don't think I'll ever not get chills when watching a crewed launch. Godspeed!
There is also a stream on ESA Web TV https://watch.esa.int/
Liftoff! The planning that went behind this is mind boggling. Well done
As someone who watched the Apollo 11 launch live on TV, this is no less awe-inspiring. This transcends nations, languages, and politics. This is of and by all humanity.
(If anyone managed to get the perfect shot of the spark-filled separation feed, please share. That was... incredible.)
It's been 54 years since humans last visited the Moon. Hopefully, in a few years we will get boots back on the surface.
That was awesome!
it's better to invest in human progress than in war
Gonna watch with my son if it doesn’t get postponed.
I’m so glad they lifted off safely. I hope they re-enter safely too.
I do hope the doomers who think that the entire US government has been completely gutted will take note of this. The government workforce is in a bad spot for sure, SLS is far from a perfect program, but this still demonstrates that we are doing some real work still.
The camera work was just terrible. They really need to learn from SpaceX how to do this right. Minus the obnoxious cheering.
SpaceX does these beautiful drone shots and live telemetry so well. Considering that each SLS launch costs in the billions it would be nice to do a little better on production
I felt the commentary during the launch also wasn't good. And I am not too interested in hearing from some Hollywood people before the launch
I'm having trouble finding a simple tracker of whereabouts the craft is at in terms of the path to the moon? Might just be me but the fancy 3-d rendering thing on the NASA page just shows me a close-up of the craft and not much else?
Longest trip since 1972.
54 years.
I hope we as humanity never stop again.
Good luck!
From here on the space coast of Florida: GODSPEED THE CREW OF ARTEMIS II
Wish them all the best and safe travels. I’ll be tuning in as you never know when the next crewed mission will be, probably not another 50 years if advancements in space travel happen.
Praying for these astronauts to have a safe return. The heat shield stuff has me really rattled. These folks are really brave to go through with this.
There are tons of comments here that say, "this could have been a robot." And no, it really couldn't have.
The best of humanity is remarkably capable as compared to the best physical machines / robots. There's a great paper called the "dispelling the myth of robotic efficiency." https://academic.oup.com/astrogeo/article-abstract/53/2/2.22... // https://lasp.colorado.edu/mop/files/2019/08/RobotMyth.pdf
> “the expert evidence we have heard strongly suggests that the use of autonomous robots alone will very significantly limit what can be learned about our nearest potentially habitable planet” (Close et al. (2005; paragraph 70).
>
> Putting it more bluntly, Steve Squyres, the Principal Investigator for the Mars Exploration Rovers Spirit and Opportunity, has written:
>
> “[t]he unfortunate truth is that most things our rovers can do in a perfect sol [i.e. a martian day] a human explorer could do in less than a minute” (Squyres, 2005, pp. 234-5).
But making a machine that can beat a 110ms reaction time human with 2SD+ IQ – and the ability to override the ground controllers with human curiosity – for exploration is much harder. Healthy, smart humans have high dexterity, are extremely capable of switching roles fast, are surprisingly efficient, and force us to return back home.
So in terms of total science return, one Apollo mission did more for lunar science and discovery than 53 years of robots on the surface and in orbit.
I really hope the report from a few days ago about the heatshield not sustaining earth reentry does not turn out to be true.
I'd like to see views of the moon and the earth from the spaceship on every hour. Is there any link for that?
Is there any website that gives me updates mirroring the livestream but in plain text? I won't be able to tune in for the launch but this is exciting and I'd like to follow the developments! I'm sure the answer is "Twitter" but I don't understand how that platform works.
It's good to see NASA finally do something beyond navel gazing. Nonetheless, calling this flight historic is a stretch. Other than flying a few miles further than Apollo 13, it will actually accomplish less than Apollo 8 did 57 years ago.
An okay unity app for tracking:
Just listened on the radio driving the kids to swim class! I'm curious, does anyone think the show For All Mankind provided any peer pressure or influence to help propel NASA to this moment?
Safe trip to the crew. I do hope that they have ironed out all the issues.