#artemis-ii-mission

#artemis-ii-mission

We're returning to the moon and we're gonna stay. We're gonna build a lunar base. And next up is Artemis II, which is America's moon rocket, it's right behind me, 8.8 million pounds of thrust, we're gonna send four astronauts around the moon in a matter of weeks, safely back to Earth, and then we're gonna set up for missions every year, again in '27 until '28, when we land on moon.

Heat shields are crucial: when spacecraft reenter Earth's atmosphere, they heat up, burning through the sky like a shooting star. Without a protective layer, any living thing inside a returning spacecraft would be exposed to temperatures about half as hot as the surface of the sun, or 5,000 degrees Fahrenheit (2,760 degrees Celsius). In Orion's case, the heat shield is made of Avcoatthe same material that protected the Apollo capsules, with a key structural difference.