With NASA’s first launch towards the moon in 5 many years potentially only a few months away, the area company has simply launched the primary episode of a brand new present that focuses on the extremely anticipated mission.

Moonbound — Charting the Course runs for 22 minutes and provides a deep dive into the preparations being made for the 10-day Artemis II flight, which is able to see 4 astronauts fly across the moon and again once more.

NASA is utilizing the mission as the primary crewed check of the House Launch System (SLS) rocket and Orion spacecraft, paving the way in which for the crewed Artemis III lunar touchdown that would happen as early as 2027.

The area company flew each the rocket and the spacecraft for the primary time within the profitable Artemis I mission in 2022.

“Once you put crew on a rocket, it’s now not a check flight,” John Honeycutt, the mission administration group chair, says within the video. “This one must carry out, and can carry out, nearly as good or higher than the primary one did … little doubt about it.”

On the 12:10 mark, the video lays out intimately the exact course that the Artemis II mission is predicted to take, together with the Kennedy House Heart launch, the lunar flyby, and the ocean splashdown.

After a number of days in an elliptical Earth orbit checking the efficiency of the Orion capsule below handbook management, the crew will head towards the moon, coming inside a mere 3,300 miles of the lunar floor because it flies round our nearest neighbor.

“We’re going to show the spacecraft so you possibly can have the most effective view of anyone of the moon in 50 years,” mentioned Jeff Radigan, the Artemis II lead flight director. “We need to be certain that we’re getting the movies of the moon that every one of us again right here on Earth need to see, and making certain that every one of our methods work on the far facet of the moon as nicely.”

The mission will finish with the all-important splashdown following a high-speed entry into Earth’s ambiance. This might be essentially the most essential a part of the mission, because the Artemis I mission uncovered some points with the Orion’s warmth protect, which NASA has labored on to resolve.

Trying additional forward, NASA needs to make use of the Artemis program to build a base on the moon for prolonged human missions, and to use what it learns from the lunar missions to plan for the primary crewed flight to Mars.

Moonbound — Charting the Course is free to view on NASA’s website.