Artemis II rocket mission to the moon: What you need to know
ABC News • • general
Key Points:
- In 1961, President John F. Kennedy challenged the U.S. to land a person on the moon by the end of the decade, leading to the Apollo program and the first moon landing in 1969; the U.S. remains the only country to have sent humans to the moon.
- NASA's Artemis II mission, launching from Kennedy Space Center with a crew of four astronauts, will be the first crewed lunar flyby in over 50 years, testing critical spacecraft systems ahead of Artemis III, which aims to land astronauts near the moon's South Pole.
- Artemis II will not land on the moon but will send astronauts on a 10-day, 600,000-mile journey around the moon to validate the Space Launch System
