Artemis II is our first crewed mission
back to the Moon since the Apollo program.
A lot of the focus of Artemis II is really checking out systems to be
sure that we're ready and well positioned for continued human exploration.
My name is Susan Baggerman, and I'm the chief health and performance
officer for the Orion program and the Artemis II mission.
And this is ten days in Orion.
For this mission, the crew will launch in the Orion
spacecraft on top of the Space Launch System rocket or the SLS rocket.
Once they've launched and achieved orbit shortly after that, they'll perform
what's called an apogee raise burn.
And that's basically to put them into a high Earth orbit,
which is critically important for this flight,
because it gives the crew 24 hours
where they can orbit and check out some of the key systems,
but also still be close enough
that we could return them to Earth if something were to happen.
One of their first
priorities is conducting a rendezvous and prox ops demonstration.
This is basically just a chance to check out the Orion handling qualities,
and what it would be like to dock to another spacecraft.
They'll continue on checking out many of the different critical Orion systems.
They'll be looking at things like oxygen levels within the vehicle,
how the CO2 scrubbing system is performing.
Check out some of the critical medical systems, and be sure that we understand
how the crew would do that successfully within the volume of Orion.
We also have, of course, systems to feed the crew.
They have a potable water dispenser that they'll check out.
And then we also have a food warmer.
Kind of looks like a suitcase that the crew can use to heat their food.
They're also going to check out the flywheel system.
We'll have the crew perform some initial exercises.
Part of that is to ensure that the flywheel is actually working,
but part of it is actually
to be sure that our environmental control systems are actually working.
For sleeping, the crew will sleep in sleeping bags.
Some crew members like to be very, like, tightly bound up, and some like to float
very free.
For the most part, they can sleep wherever they want within the Orion vehicle.
They'll attempt things that may seem pretty easy to do here
on Earth, but that are much harder to do with microgravity.
They'll use the toilet for the first time, and be sure that it's able to flush.
I'm Melissa McKinley.
I'm the project manager for the UWMS, the universal waste management system.
Going to the bathroom without the aid of gravity, without water
to collect the waste. It's harder than you would think.
So we use airflow to help entrain the waste into packaging to collect it.
And help the crew member deposit the waste away from their bodies.
It is really important that we make it easy as we can for crew
and make it comfortable for them, because it is a vital part of exploration.
I'm Romeo Garza.
I am the deputy system manager for the Orion communication
and tracking system here at Johnson Space Center.
While we're in the high Earth orbit,
there's a couple of things we really want to check out
before we commit to going all the way to the Moon.
First one is just success in communicating with the Deep Space Network.
This is a ground network that provides a lot of capability for us to be able
to tie it back and forth as we go further and further away from the Earth.
Step two is checking out our emergency comm system.
The idea is that if the primary system communication system fails,
this emergency communication system will be able to allow us to continue
talking with the crew and navigate successfully without the primary system.
Once the crew is completed that high Earth orbit and checked out
all of the systems, then we'll commit to what's called the trans lunar injection.
And this is basically the burn that commits us to the Moon
while they're on their journey.
They'll do some testing that they quickly don their suit pressure
check it, and be sure that they're able to execute that,
just to be sure that we would be ready in the future for an emergency.
They'll also check out our radiation shelter.
If we were to have a solar particle event, we would be asking them to take stowage
out of the stowage bay and put it in some specific locations
on the vehicle, basically for it to serve as shielding.
After completing this
journey of over 685,000 miles around the Moon,
the crew will splashdown in the Pacific Ocean off the coast of San Diego.
They'll be greeted by the Navy, who will recover the vessel
and most importantly, recover the crew.
This mission has been an absolute monumental effort
by a large team of people within the human health and performance area.
All of our efforts, and all of the engineering
and the medical discipline that was poured into this mission,
really resulted in being able to see those four crew members,
our friends, return safely to the Earth and back to their families.