5 Cool Things I Learned from the Artemis II Crew Press Conference

This morning I headed to the Canadian Space Agency to watch a live broadcast from the Artemis II crew down in Houston. You can watch the entire conference here.

The crew took about 20 minutes to describe elements of the mission, then took questions from the press.

I scrambled some notes together while the crew talked. I felt I was pretty well-versed in the mission, but I learned a lot of cool nuggets and some new public info announced today that I thought I'd share with you:

1: Name of the Vehicle

The crew will be traveling in the Orion spacecraft. This is the name of the class of vehicle that will be used on Artemis II and future Artemis missions. But each spacecraft will be given its own name, and this usually comes from the first crew to fly it.

Reid Wiseman, the Commander announced the name today: "Integrity".

2: Highly Eccentric Orbit around Earth

Victor Glover described the launch and the major orbital moments of the mission. About 9 minutes after launch, they will be in space and enter a stable orbit around Earth. They'll check to make sure that all the systems – most importantly, the water and the toilet – are all working. 

Then, it starts getting nuts. They'll do an "Apogee Raise Burn" by firing up the spacecraft engine.

This will put them into a really crazy orbit: they'll get as high up as 40,000 miles, then swing back down to as close as 100 miles above the Earth.

For context, 40,000 miles is almost 1/6th the way to the Moon.

I've tried to visualize this in my planetarium software. The blue line is the path the spacecraft will travel:

The crew will see the Earth in its entirety, then come whipping back close to the Earth before rocketing their way out towards the Moon on a TLI burn (translunar injection burn). 

What an incredible view this is going to be for the crew.

3: First time ever that humans will be in Earth orbit and around the Moon

Commander Reid Wiseman mentioned this, and I think I let out an audible "huh! neat!" in the conference hall when he said it: this will be the first time we'll have humans around the Moon and in Earth orbit simultaneously.

I doubled-checked to make sure. And yep, seems so. On every Apollo mission to the Moon, there were no Soviet missions happening simultaneously.

This time, we have the International Space Station in orbit during the voyage to the Moon. In fact, there will be a dual crew conference with the ISS and spacecraft Integrity on their way out to the Moon.

4: Parts of the Moon that have never been seen by human eyes

During Apollo, the launch dates were determined by how the Moon was illuminated by the Sun during the lunar month. We only landed on the near side of the Moon, and thus, it needed to be lit up to make landing possible.

So when we went to the Moon during Apollo, the far side of the Moon was mostly in darkness.

Commander Reid Wiseman said that "there is a very likely chance we will see 60% of the far side that has never been seen by human eyes."

We also learned today that the crew's closest approach to the Moon will last around 3 hours. Though this time will likely flash before them, this does give them enough time to do some observations with their own eyes. And sometimes, that's far more valuable than what a scientific instrument can provide.

They'll also take photos and videos of not just the Moon, but made a special note that they'll also be taking photos of themselves inside the craft.

5: Loss and Acquisition of Signal

While the crew is observing the far side, there will be a time when the Moon will block all communication with Earth. This is called LOS, or "Loss of Signal".

I thought this LOS moment might happen on the mission, but I didn't think to frame it in the way the crew did...

Victor Glover said this would last about 45 minutes. But he answered this in the context of the question, "How do you want history to view this mission in this moment of time?"

Glover – and probably the entire crew – understand we're living in a fractured time. Just... look around. 

And it's Glover's hope that during those 45 minutes, the 8 billion people on planet Earth can come together for just this one moment and hope the crew can make contact with Earth again. 

Or, technically speaking get AOS, "Acquisition of Signal".

To quote Glover: "If we had the ability to be one thing for one moment, that would remind us when things get tough [...], that we all share that we can do challenging and very big and very important things when we work together."

Watch the moment here.