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Life Encapsulated: Inside NASA’s Orion for Artemis II Moon Mission
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By NASA
Technicians move the Orion spacecraft for NASA’s Artemis II test flight out of the Neil A. Armstrong Operations and Checkout Building to the Multi-Payload Processing Facility at Kennedy Space Center in Florida on Saturday, May 3, 2025. NASA/Kim Shiflett Engineers, technicians, mission planners, and the four astronauts set to fly around the Moon next year on Artemis II, NASA’s first crewed Artemis mission, are rapidly progressing toward launch.
At the agency’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida, teams are working around the clock to move into integration and final testing of all SLS (Space Launch System) and Orion spacecraft elements. Recently they completed two key milestones – connecting the SLS upper stage with the rest of the assembled rocket and moving Orion from its assembly facility to be fueled for flight.
“We’re extremely focused on preparing for Artemis II, and the mission is nearly here,” said Lakiesha Hawkins, assistant deputy associate administrator for NASA’s Moon to Mars Program, who also will chair the mission management team during Artemis II. “This crewed test flight, which will send four humans around the Moon, will inform our future missions to the Moon and Mars.”
Teams with NASA’s Exploration Ground Systems Program begin integrating the interim cryogenic propulsion stage to the SLS (Space Launch System) launch vehicle stage adapter on Wednesday, April 30, 2025, inside the Vehicle Assembly Building at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida. NASA/Isaac Watson On May 1, technicians successfully attached the interim cryogenic propulsion stage to the SLS rocket elements already poised atop mobile launcher 1, including its twin solid rocket boosters and core stage, inside the spaceport’s Vehicle Assembly Building (VAB). This portion of the rocket produces 24,750 pounds of thrust for Orion after the rest of the rocket has completed its job. Teams soon will move into a series of integrated tests to ensure all the rocket’s elements are communicating with each other and the Launch Control Center as expected. The tests include verifying interfaces and ensuring SLS systems work properly with the ground systems.
Meanwhile, on May 3, Orion left its metaphorical nest, the Neil Armstrong Operations & Checkout Facility at Kennedy, where it was assembled and underwent initial testing. There the crew module was outfitted with thousands of parts including critical life support systems for flight and integrated with the service module and crew module adapter. Its next stop on the road to the launch pad is the Multi-Payload Processing Facility, where it will be carefully fueled with propellants, high pressure gases, coolant, and other fluids the spacecraft and its crew need to maneuver in space and carry out the mission.
After fueling is complete, the four astronauts flying on the mission around the Moon and back over the course of approximately 10 days, will board the spacecraft in their Orion Crew Survival System spacesuits to test all the equipment interfaces they will need to operate during the mission. This will mark the first time NASA’s Reid Wiseman, Victor Glover, and Christina Koch, and CSA (Canadian Space Agency) astronaut Jeremy Hansen, will board their actual spacecraft while wearing their spacesuits. After the crewed testing is complete, technicians will move Orion to Kennedy’s Launch Abort System Facility, where the critical escape system will be added. From there, Orion will move to the VAB to be integrated with the fully assembled rocket.
NASA also announced its second agreement with an international space agency to fly a CubeSat on the mission. The collaborations provide opportunities for other countries to work alongside NASA to integrate and fly technology and experiments as part of the agency’s Artemis campaign.
While engineers at Kennedy integrate and test hardware with their eyes on final preparations for the mission, teams responsible for launching and flying the mission have been busy preparing for a variety of scenarios they could face.
The launch team at Kennedy has completed more than 30 simulations across cryogenic propellant loading and terminal countdown scenarios. The crew has been taking part in simulations for mission scenarios, including with teams in mission control. In April, the crew and the flight control team at NASA’s Johnson Space Center in Houston simulated liftoff through a planned manual piloting test together for the first time. The crew also recently conducted long-duration fit checks for their spacesuits and seats, practicing several operations while under various suit pressures.
NASA astronaut Christina Koch participates in a fit check April 18, 2025, in the spacesuit she will wear during Artemis II. NASA/Josh Valcarcel Teams are heading into a busy summer of mission preparations. While hardware checkouts and integration continue, in coming months the crew, flight controllers, and launch controllers will begin practicing their roles in the mission together as part of integrated simulations. In May, the crew will begin participating pre-launch operations and training for emergency scenarios during launch operations at Kennedy and observe a simulation by the launch control team of the terminal countdown portion of launch. In June, recovery teams will rehearse procedures they would use in the case of a pad or ascent abort off the coast of Florida, with launch and flight control teams supporting. The mission management team, responsible for reviewing mission status and risk assessments for issues that arise and making decisions about them, also will begin practicing their roles in simulations. Later this summer, the Orion stage adapter will arrive at the VAB from NASA’s Marshall Spaceflight Center in Huntsville, Alabama, and stacked on top of the rocket.
NASA astronauts Reid Wiseman (foreground) and Victor Glover participate in a simulation of their Artemis II entry profile on March 13, 2025.NASA/Bill Stafford Through Artemis, NASA will send astronauts to explore the Moon for scientific discovery, economic benefits, and build the foundation for the first crewed missions to Mars.
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By NASA
Researchers with NASA’s Exploration Research and Technology programs conduct molten regolith electrolysis testing inside Swamp Works at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida on Thursday, Dec. 5, 2024.NASA/Kim Shiflett As NASA works to establish a long-term presence on the Moon, researchers have reached a breakthrough by extracting oxygen at a commercial scale from simulated lunar soil at Swamp Works at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida. The achievement moves NASA one step closer to its goal of utilizing resources on the Moon and beyond instead of relying only on supplies shipped from Earth.
NASA Kennedy researchers in the Exploration Research and Technology programs teamed up with Lunar Resources Inc. (LUNAR), a space industrial company in Houston, Texas, to perform molten regolith electrolysis. Researchers used the company’s resource extraction reactor, called LR-1, along with NASA Kennedy’s vacuum chamber. During the recent vacuum chamber testing, molecular oxygen was measured in its pure form along with the production of metals from a batch of dust and rock that simulates lunar soil, often referred to as “regolith,” in the industry.
“This is the first time NASA has produced molecular oxygen using this process,” said Dr. Annie Meier, molten regolith electrolysis project manager at NASA Kennedy. “The process of heating up the reactor is like using an elaborate cooking pot. Once the lid is on, we are essentially watching the gas products come out.”
During testing, the vacuum environment chamber replicated the vacuum pressure of the lunar surface. The extraction reactor heated about 55 pounds (25 kilograms) of simulated regolith up to a temperature of 3100°F (1700°C) until it melted. Researchers then passed an electric current through the molten regolith until oxygen in a gas form was separated from the metals of the soil. They measured and collected the molecular oxygen for further study.
In addition to air for breathing, astronauts could use oxygen from the Moon as a propellant for NASA’s lunar landers and for building essential infrastructure. This practice of in-situ resource utilization (ISRU) also decreases the costs of deep space exploration by reducing the number of resupply missions needed from Earth.
Once the process is perfected on Earth, the reactor and its subsystems can be delivered on future missions to the Moon. Lunar rovers, similar to NASA’s ISRU Pilot Excavator, could autonomously gather the regolith to bring back to the reactor system to separate the metals and oxygen.
“Using this unique chemical process can produce the oxidizer, which is half of the propellant mix, and it can create vital metals used in the production of solar panels that in turn could power entire lunar base stations,” said Evan Bell, mechanical structures and mechatronics lead at NASA Kennedy.
Post-test data analysis will help the NASA and LUNAR teams better understand the thermal and chemical function of full-scale molten regolith electrolysis reactors for the lunar surface. The vacuum chamber and reactor also can be upgraded to represent other locations of the lunar environment as well as conditions on Mars for further testing.
Researchers at NASA Kennedy began developing and testing molten regolith electrolysis reactors in the early 1990s. Swamp Works is a hands-on learning environment facility at NASA Kennedy that takes ideas through development and into application to benefit space exploration and everyone living on Earth. From 2019 to 2023, Swamp Works developed an early concept reactor under vacuum conditions named Gaseous Lunar Oxygen from Regolith Electrolysis (GaLORE). Scientists at NASA’s Johnson Space Center in Houston conducted similar testing in 2023, removing carbon monoxide from simulated lunar regolith in a vacuum chamber.
“We always say that Kennedy Space Center is Earth’s premier spaceport, and this breakthrough in molten regolith electrolysis is just another aspect of us being the pioneers in providing spaceport capabilities on the Moon, Mars, and beyond,” Bell said.
NASA’s Exploration Research and Technology programs, related laboratories, and research facilities develop technologies that will enable human deep space exploration. NASA’s Game Changing Development program, managed by the agency’s Space Technology Mission Directorate funded the project.
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By NASA
Intuitive Machines’ IM-2 captured an image March 6, 2025, after landing in a crater from the Moon’s South Pole. The lunar lander is on its side near the intended landing site, Mons Mouton. In the center of the image between the two lander legs is the Polar Resources Ice Mining Experiment 1 suite, which shows the drill deployed.Intuitive Machines NASA’s PRIME-1 (Polar Resources Ice Mining Experiment 1) mission was designed to demonstrate technologies to help scientists better understand lunar resources ahead of crewed Artemis missions to the Moon. During the short-lived mission on the Moon, the performance of PRIME-1’s technology gave NASA teams reason to celebrate.
“The PRIME-1 mission proved that our hardware works in the harshest environment we’ve ever tested it in,” said Janine Captain, PRIME-1 co-principal investigator and research chemist at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida. “While it may not have gone exactly to plan, this is a huge step forward as we prepare to send astronauts back to the Moon and build a sustainable future there.”
Intuitive Machines’ IM-2 mission launched to the Moon on Feb. 26, 2025, from NASA Kennedy’s Launch Complex 39A, as part of the company’s second Moon delivery for NASA under the agency’s CLPS (Commercial Lunar Payload Services) initiative and Artemis campaign. The IM-2 Nova-C lunar lander, named Athena, carried PRIME-1 and its suite of two instruments: a drill known as TRIDENT (The Regolith and Ice Drill for Exploring New Terrain), designed to bring lunar soil to the surface; and a mass spectrometer, Mass Spectrometer Observing Lunar Operations (MSOLO), to study TRIDENT’s drill cuttings for the presence of gases that could one day help provide propellant or breathable oxygen to future Artemis explorers.
The IM-2 mission touched down on the lunar surface on March 6, just around 1,300 feet (400 meters) from its intended landing site of Mons Mouton, a lunar plateau near the Moon’s South Pole. The Athena lander was resting on its side inside a crater preventing it from recharging its solar cells, resulting in an end of the mission.
“We were supposed to have 10 days of operation on the Moon, and what we got was closer to 10 hours,” said Julie Kleinhenz, NASA’s lead systems engineer for PRIME-1, as well as the in-situ resource utilization system capability lead deputy for the agency. “It was 10 hours more than most people get so I am thrilled to have been a part of it.”
Kleinhenz has spent nearly 20 years working on how to use lunar resources for sustained operations. In-situ resource utilization harnesses local natural resources at mission destinations. This enables fewer launches and resupply missions and significantly reduces the mass, cost, and risk of space exploration. With NASA poised to send humans back to the Moon and on to Mars, generating products for life support, propellants, construction, and energy from local materials will become increasingly important to future mission success.
“In-situ resource utilization is the key to unlocking long-term exploration, and PRIME-1 is helping us lay this foundation for future travelers.” Captain said.
The PRIME-1 technology also set out to answer questions about the properties of lunar regolith, such as soil strength. This data could help inform the design of in-situ resource utilization systems that would use local resources to create everything from landing pads to rocket fuel during Artemis and later missions.
“Once we got to the lunar surface, TRIDENT and MSOLO both started right up, and performed perfectly. From a technology demonstrations standpoint, 100% of the instruments worked.” Kleinhenz said.
The lightweight, low-power augering drill built by Honeybee Robotics, known as TRIDENT, is 1 meter long and features rotary and percussive actuators that convert energy into the force needed to drill. The drill was designed to stop at any depth as commanded from the ground and deposit its sample on the surface for analysis by MSOLO, a commercial off-the-shelf mass spectrometer modified by engineers and technicians at NASA Kennedy to withstand the harsh lunar environment. Designed to measure the composition of gases in the vicinity of the lunar lander, both from the lander and from the ambient exosphere, MSOLO can help NASA analyze the chemical makeup of the lunar soil and study water on the surface of the Moon.
Once on the Moon, the actuators on the drill performed as designed, completing multiple stages of movement necessary to drill into the lunar surface. Prompted by commands from technicians on Earth, the auger rotated, the drill extended to its full range, the percussion system performed a hammering motion, and the PRIME-1 team turned on an embedded core heater in the drill and used internal thermal sensors to monitor the temperature change.
While MSOLO was able to perform several scans to detect gases, researchers believe from the initial data that the gases detected were all anthropogenic, or human in origin, such as gases vented from spacecraft propellants and traces of Earth water. Data from PRIME-1 accounted for some of the approximately 7.5 gigabytes of data collected during the IM-2 mission, and researchers will continue to analyze the data in the coming months and publish the results.
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