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By NASA
4 Min Read NASA Uses Colorado Mountains for Simulated Artemis Moon Landing Course
NASA has certified a new lander flight training course using helicopters, marking a key milestone in crew training for Artemis missions to the Moon. Through Artemis, NASA explore the lunar South Pole, paving the way for human exploration farther into the solar system, including Mars.
The mountains in northern Colorado offer similar visual illusions and flight environments to the Moon. NASA partnered with the Colorado Army National Guard at the High-Altitude Army National Guard Aviation Training Site near Gypsum, Colorado, to develop the foundational flight training course.
“Artemis astronauts who will land on the Moon will need to master crew coordination and communication with one another,” said Paul Felker, acting deputy director of flight operations at NASA’s Johnson Space Center in Houston. “Much like they will on the Moon, astronaut teams are learning how to work together efficiently in a stressful environment to identify hazards, overcome degraded visual environments, and evaluate risks to successfully land.”
During the two-week certification run in late August, NASA astronauts Mark Vande Hei and Matthew Dominick participated in flight and landing training to help certify the course. The pair took turns flying a helicopter and navigating to landing zones. Artemis flight crew trainers, mission control leads, and lunar lander operational experts from NASA Johnson joined them on each helicopter flight to assess the instruction, training environment, and technical applications for crewed lunar missions.
NASA astronauts Matthew Dominick (left) and Mark Vande Hei (right) prepare to fly out to a landing zone in the Rocky Mountains as part of the certification run for the NASA Artemis course at the High-Altitude Army National Guard Aviation Training Site in Gypsum, Colorado, Aug. 26. NASA/Michael DeMocker A LUH-72 Lakota helicopter stirs up dust at the High-Altitude Army National Guard Aviation Training Site in Gypsum, Colorado, Aug. 28. NASA/Charles Beason A member of the Colorado Army National Guard peers out of a CH-47 Chinook in preparation for landing Aug. 22. NASA and trained instructors from the Army National Guard use a range of aircraft during flight training. Chinooks are used to demonstrate challenges with landing on the Moon. NASA/Charles Beason NASA astronauts Matthew Dominick (left) and Mark Vande Hei (right) celebrate after returning from a training flight Aug. 26 during a certification run for a lander flight training course for crewed Artemis missions. NASA/Michael DeMocker Paired with trained instructors with the Army National Guard, astronauts fly to mountaintops and valleys in a range of aircraft, including LUH-72 Lakotas, CH-47 Chinooks, and UH-60 Black Hawks. NASA/Charles Beason NASA astronaut Mark Vande Hei lands a helicopter as part of flight and landing training at the High Altitude Army National Guard Aviation Training Site Aug. 28. NASA/Michael DeMocker A member of the Colorado Army National Guard looks out of a CH-47 Chinook as it lands at a steep angle Aug. 29. A crater on the Moon could have a similar incline, posing landing challenges for future crewed Artemis missions. NASA/Michael DeMocker A LUH-72 Lakota helicopter flies over the mountains of northern Colorado Aug. 28 during a certification run for a lander flight training course for crewed Artemis missions. The mountains and valleys in Colorado have similar visual illusions to the Moon. NASA/Michael DeMocker The patch for the High-Altitude Army National Guard Aviation Training Site is pictured in the cupola of the International Space Station in 2023. NASA and the Colorado Army National Guard began working together in 2021 to develop a foundational lunar lander simulated flight training course for Artemis. NASA The NASA astronauts and trained instructor pilots with the Army National Guard flew to progressively more challenging landing zones throughout the course, navigating the mountainous terrain, and working together to quickly and efficiently land the aircraft.
Teams can train year-round using the course. Depending on the season, the snowy or dusty conditions can cause visual obstruction. Lunar dust can cause similar visual impairment during future crewed missions.
“Here in Colorado, we have specifically flown to dusty areas, so we know and understand just how important dust becomes during the final descent phase,” Vande Hei said. “Dust will interact with the lander thrusters on the Moon. During our flight training, we have had to revert to our instruments – just like we would on the Moon – because astronauts may lose all their visual cues when they’re near the surface.”
During Artemis III, four astronauts inside the agency’s Orion spacecraft on top of the SLS (Space Launch System rocket) will launch to meet SpaceX’s Starship Human Landing System in lunar orbit. Orion will then dock with the Starship system and two astronauts will board the lander. Astronauts will use the Starship lander to safely transport themselves from lunar orbit to the lunar surface. Following surface operations, the two astronauts will use Starship to launch from the lunar surface, back to lunar orbit, and dock with Orion to safely journey back to Earth.
The NASA-focused course has been in development since 2021. Vande Hei and Dominick are the 24th and 25th NASA astronauts to participate in and evaluate the course based on functionality and Artemis mission needs. One ESA (European Space Agency) astronaut has also participated in the course.
“This course will likely be one of the first group flight training opportunities for the Artemis III crew,” said NASA astronaut Doug Wheelock, who helped to develop the foundational training course for the agency. “While the astronauts will also participate in ground and simulation training in Ohio and Texas, the real-world flight environment in Colorado at offers astronauts an amazing simulation of the problem solving and decision making needed to control and maneuver a lunar lander across an equally dynamic landscape.”
Though the course is now certified for Artemis, teams will continue to evaluate the training based on astronaut and technical feedback to ensure mission success and crew safety.
Through the Artemis campaign, NASA will send astronauts to explore the Moon for scientific discovery, economic benefits, and to build the foundation for the first crewed missions to Mars for the benefit of all.
For more information about Artemis visit:
https://www.nasa.gov/artemis
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Last Updated Sep 10, 2025 EditorBeth RidgewayContactCorinne M. Beckingercorinne.m.beckinger@nasa.govLocationMarshall Space Flight Center Related Terms
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By NASA
The Artemis I SLS (Space Launch System) rocket and Orion spacecraft is pictured in the Vehicle Assembly Building at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida before rollout to launch pad 39B, in March 2022.Credit: NASA/Frank Michaux Media are invited to see NASA’s fully assembled Artemis II SLS (Space Launch System) rocket and Orion spacecraft in mid-October before its crewed test flight around the Moon next year.
The event at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida will showcase hardware for the Artemis II lunar mission, which will test capabilities needed for deep space exploration. NASA and industry subject matter experts will be available for interviews.
Attendance is open to U.S. citizens and international media. Media accreditation deadlines are as follows:
International media without U.S. citizenship must apply by 11:59 p.m. EDT on Monday, Sept. 22. U.S. media and U.S. citizens representing international media organizations must apply by 11:59 p.m. EDT on Monday, Sept. 29. Media wishing to take part in person must apply for credentials at:
https://media.ksc.nasa.gov
Credentialed media will receive a confirmation email upon approval, along with additional information about the specific date for the mid-October activities when they are determined. NASA’s media accreditation policy is available online. For questions about accreditation, please email: ksc-media-accreditat@mail.nasa.gov. For other questions, please contact the NASA Kennedy newsroom at: 321-867-2468.
Prior to the media event, the Orion spacecraft will transition from the Launch Abort System Facility to the Vehicle Assembly Building at NASA Kennedy, where it will be placed on top of the SLS rocket. The fully stacked rocket will then undergo complete integrated testing and final hardware closeouts ahead of rolling the rocket to Launch Pad 39B for launch. During this effort, technicians will conduct end-to-end communications checkouts, and the crew will practice day of launch procedures during their countdown demonstration test.
Artemis II will send NASA astronauts Reid Wiseman, Victor Glover, Christina Koch, and CSA (Canadian Space Agency) astronaut Jeremy Hansen on an approximately 10-day journey around the Moon and back. As part of a Golden Age of innovation and exploration, Artemis will pave the way for new U.S.-crewed missions on the lunar surface ahead in preparation toward the first crewed mission to Mars.
To learn more about the Artemis II mission, visit:
https://www.nasa.gov/mission/artemis-ii
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Rachel Kraft / Lauren Low
Headquarters, Washington
202-358-1100
rachel.h.kraft@nasa.gov / lauren.e.low@nasa.gov
Tiffany Fairley
Kennedy Space Center, Fla.
321-867-2468
tiffany.l.fairley@nasa.gov
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Last Updated Sep 10, 2025 LocationNASA Headquarters Related Terms
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By NASA
4 min read
Preparations for Next Moonwalk Simulations Underway (and Underwater)
What Would It Take to Say We Found Life?
We call this the podium test. What would it take for you personally to confidently stand up in front of an international audience and make that claim? When you put it in that way, I think for a lot of scientists, the bar is really high.
So of course, there would be obvious things, you know, a very clear signature of technology or a skeleton or something like that. But we think that a lot of the evidence that we might encounter first will be much more subtle. For example, chemical signs of life that have to be detected above a background of abiotic chemistry. And really, what we see might depend a lot on where we look.
On Mars, for example, the long history of exploration there gives us a lot of context for what we might find. But we’re potentially talking about samples that are billions of years old in those cases, and on Earth, those kinds of samples, the evidence of life is often degraded and difficult to detect.
On the ocean worlds of our outer solar system, so places like Jupiter’s moon Europa and Saturn’s moon Enceladus, there’s the tantalizing possibility of extant life, meaning life that’s still alive. But potentially we’re talking about exceedingly small amounts of samples that would have to be analyzed with a relatively limited amount of instrumentation that can be carried from Earth billions of miles away.
And then for exoplanets, these are planets beyond our own solar system. Really, what we’re looking for there are very large magnitude signs of life that can be detectable through a telescope from many light-years away. So changes like the oxygenation of Earth’s atmosphere or changes in surface color.
So any one of those things, if they rose to the suspicion of being evidence of life, would be really heavily scrutinized in a very sort of specific and custom way to that particular observation. But I think there are also some general principles that we can follow. And the first is just: Are we sure we’re seeing what we think we’re seeing? Many of these environments are not very well known to us, and so we need to convince ourselves that we’re actually seeing a clear signal that represents what we think it represents.
Carl Sagan once said, “Life is the hypothesis of last resort,” meaning that we ought to work hard for such a claim to rule out alternative possibilities. So what are those possibilities? One is contamination. The spacecraft and the instruments that we use to look for evidence of life are built in an environment, Earth, that is full of life. And so we need to convince ourselves that what we’re seeing is not evidence of our own life, but evidence of indigenous life.
If that’s the case, we should ask, should life of the type we’re seeing live there? And finally, we need to ask, is there any other way than life to make that thing, any of the possible abiotic processes that we know and even the ones that we don’t know? And as you can imagine, that will be quite a challenge.
Once we have a piece of evidence in hand that we really do think represents evidence of life, now we can begin to develop hypotheses. For example, do we have separate independent lines of evidence that corroborate what we’ve seen and increase our confidence of life?
Ultimately, all of this has to be looked at hard by the entire scientific community, and in that sense, I think the really operative word in our question is we. What does it take to say we found evidence of life? Because really, the answer, I think, depends on the full scientific community scrutinizing and skepticizing this observation to finally say that we scientists, we as a community and we as humanity found life.
[END VIDEO TRANSCRIPT]
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By NASA
Boarding passes will carry participants’ names on NASA’s Artemis II mission in 2026.Credit: NASA Lee este comunicado de prensa en español aquí.
NASA is inviting the public to join the agency’s Artemis II test flight as four astronauts venture around the Moon and back to test systems and hardware needed for deep space exploration. As part of the agency’s “Send Your Name with Artemis II” effort, anyone can claim their spot by signing up before Jan. 21.
Participants will launch their name aboard the Orion spacecraft and SLS (Space Launch System) rocket alongside NASA astronauts Reid Wiseman, Victor Glover, Christina Koch, and CSA (Canadian Space Agency) astronaut Jeremy Hansen.
“Artemis II is a key test flight in our effort to return humans to the Moon’s surface and build toward future missions to Mars, and it’s also an opportunity to inspire people across the globe and to give them an opportunity to follow along as we lead the way in human exploration deeper into space,” said Lori Glaze, acting associate administrator, Exploration Systems Development Mission Directorate at NASA Headquarters in Washington.
The collected names will be put on an SD card loaded aboard Orion before launch. In return, participants can download a boarding pass with their name on it as a collectable.
To add your name and receive an English-language boarding pass, visit:
https://go.nasa.gov/artemisnames
To add your name and receive a Spanish-language boarding pass, visit:
https://go.nasa.gov/TuNombreArtemis
As part of a Golden Age of innovation and exploration, the approximately 10-day Artemis II test flight, launching no later than April 2026, is the first crewed flight under NASA’s Artemis campaign. It is another step toward new U.S.-crewed missions on the Moon’s surface that will help the agency prepare to send the first astronauts – Americans – to Mars.
To learn more about the mission visit:
https://www.nasa.gov/mission/artemis-ii/
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Rachel Kraft
Headquarters, Washington
202-358-1600
rachel.h.kraft@nasa.gov
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Last Updated Sep 09, 2025 LocationNASA Headquarters Related Terms
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