After the Apollo mission’s, NASA’s new Artemis program marks a revolutionary new chapter in space exploration and further knowledge into the wonders of the universe! With the mission being an historic mission, the launch was on April 1st, 2026 at 6:35 pm from Kennedy space center in Florida. The Artemis 2 mission is the first mission to be crewed beyond low earth orbit since the Apollo 17 mission in 1972, and also the first humans to travel around the moon in over 50 years. We asked students at Farmington high what they thought about the Artemis 2 mission.
“The Artemis 2 mission was an incredible experience, the crew are such talented people, giving us people an insight into the world of space,” Junior Macie West said.
The Artemis 2 crew consists of four astronauts: Commander – Reid Wiseman, Pilot – Victor Glover, Mission Specialists – Christina Koch and Jeremy Hansen. The four astronauts have been training for years to get picked by NASA to complete the Artemis 2 mission. Facing the hard reality of leaving loved ones at home, while making a footprint in space history.
The Artemis 2 mission is the first to have humans go around the moon and seeing an unexplored and unseen part of the moon. With a duration of 9 days, 1 hour and 32 minutes. This kind of mission isn’t just fascinating, it’s crucial for the living of humans and a sustainable presence on the moon, while also making it one of the many preparations for missions to another planet we all know too well – Mars.
“It’s cool to see them starting a space mission again and cool to see how they continue with putting a base on the moon, so that humanity can go to Mars” Sophomore Romnee Bird.
The mission in the end, was a great success, with the crew landing in the Orion spacecraft in the pacific ocean near San Diego on April 10th, 8:07 pm – eastern time and pacific time – 5:07 pm. The spacecraft that was named integrity and carried all four astronauts the farthest any human has ever gone from Earth and then also returning to back again safely. Alongside this fascinating trip, Commander Reid Wiseman named one of the bright craters on the moon “Carroll” after his late wife – Carroll Reid Wiseman’s who passed away with cancer in 2020 at the age of 46.
