NASA's Artemis Two mission It has passed all the major tests since its launch on April 1 - its rocket, spacecraft and crew have performed better than engineers dared to hope.
The first six days of the mission showed that the Orion capsule was working as designed with humans aboard for the first time, something no simulation could prove.
Perhaps its greatest achievement, however, is evident in the actions of the Artemis crew, who have brought hope, initiative, and optimism to a world that seems desperately in need of any inspiration.
But the bigger question remains - is landing on the Moon by 2028, as NASA and US President Donald Trump want, now really an achievable goal?
What has Artemis Two shown us so far?
A few days after NASA's Space Launch System (SLS) arrived on the launch pad at Kennedy Space Center, the most important lesson of Artemis Two had already been learned.
After two canceled launches in February and again in March due to various technological problems, NASA Administrator Jared Isaacman said that "launching a rocket as important and complex as SLS every three years is not the path to success."
The previous uncrewed Artemis One mission took off in November 2022.
The agency, he said, needs to stop treating every rocket as a "work of art" and start launching them more often and showing that it is serious about the program.
It was practically a message that relearning the same lessons every three years had to stop.
This is important, because it reshaped everything that followed.
And comparing it to that ambition, what has the mission shown us in the six days since Reed Wiseman, Victor Glover, Christina Koch, and Jeremy Hansen took off on April 1st?
The short answer is - more than even the optimists dared to hope for.
You can find out everything about the Artemis Two mission (or Artemis Two) here. read HERE.
Watch the video: Three interesting moments during the Artemis 2 mission crew's journey to the Moon
The rocket did the job.
During liftoff, the SLS produced four million kilograms of thrust and, by every measure important to engineers, did so exactly as planned.
Each stage of ascent was, in the restrained vocabulary of mission control, "nominal": maximum dynamic pressure, main engine shutdown, and booster separation.
Two of the three course corrections on the way to the Moon were discarded because the trajectory was already so precise that they were not needed.
As Dr Simeon Barber, a space scientist at the Open University, put it: “Kudos to them - they got it right the first time.”
About 36 hours after launch, a critical moment occurred.
Orion fired its main engine at five minutes and fifty-six seconds, which is known as translunar injection maneuver, putting the spacecraft on a circular return trajectory to the Moon without the need for additional major maneuvers.
The powerful engine activation was “flawless,” said Dr. Laura Glaze, head of the Artemis program.
People in the machine
The official purpose of this mission is to put people in Orion and to find out what's going on there - not just with the spacecraft, but also in the relationship between the crew and the machine.
What was happening was exactly what was expected, and exactly what could not have been achieved in a simulator alone.
There was a problem with the toilet.
A problem with the water dispenser required the mission to divert water as a precaution.
A minor loss of redundancy in the helium system was mentioned in an early press conference and resolved quietly.
"The point of this is to put people in a loop - those busy people who push buttons, breathe in carbon dioxide, want air conditioning, and use the toilet."
"The bottom line is how the system works with those people on the aircraft," Barber noted.
Engineers who have monitored Orion's carbon dioxide removal system through continuous training sessions, or testing how the spacecraft copes with its thrusters intentionally disabled, are bolstering arguments that the spacecraft is safe enough to bring humans to the lunar surface.
Barber's overall assessment was straightforward:
"Orion seems to have been working pretty well - certainly everything related to propulsion, which is the most critical area."
Important science or NASA hype?
NASA talked about scientific achievements.
The crew made comprehensive observations during the flight - about 35 geological features recorded in real time, color variations that could indicate mineral composition, and a solar eclipse from deep space that pilot Victor Glover said "looked unreal."
One image stood out: Oriental Basin, a thousand-kilometer crater near the far side of the Moon, which human eyes could see clearly for the first time.
And yet the scientific segment of everything is not the main thing.
Professor Chris Lintot of Oxford, one of the hosts of Night Sky, was blunt: “The artistic value of the images that came back from Artemis and its crew is significant, but their scientific value is limited.”
India's Chandrayaan-3 it landed near the South Pole in 2023.
China's Chang'e-6 he took samples from the far side in 2024.
Robotic probes have mapped the terrain in incredible detail.
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The most poignant moment came not from any instrument, but from the crew themselves.
When the astronauts broke the distance record set by the crew of the disabled Apollo 13 in 1970, mission specialist Jeremy Hansen called Mission Control in Houston.
They spotted the crater, he said, on the border between the near and far sides - in a bright spot northwest of the Glushko crater.
"We lost a loved one," his voice trembled.
"Her name was Carol - Reed's wife, mother of Katie and Ellie. And we would like to call him Carol."
Forty-five seconds of silence followed.
Commander Reed Wiseman was crying during this time.
The crew hugged each other.
On Earth, his daughters watched from Houston.
Watch video: Crater on the Moon named after the late wife of Artemis Two crew commander
That moment was important not only for sentimental reasons.
Space programs that cannot produce genuine human emotion that is not scripted cannot survive.
The reason Apollo persists in cultural memory is not just because of its engineering, but because of what it says about human capability and courage.
Artemis Two, at that moment, could boast the same achievement.
The biggest trials are yet to come
The mission is not yet complete.
Orion headed home, ready to splash down in the Pacific Ocean off San Diego on April 11th.
All that remains is re-entry into the Earth's atmosphere.
That moment caused a lot of nervousness after Artemis One, when unexpected damage to the heat shield triggered an investigation that delayed the mission for more than a year.
The Orion capsule will enter the atmosphere at a speed of approximately 40.000 kilometers per hour.
It's a test that no simulator can replicate, and its outcome will define the legacy of this mission more than any image of the far side of the Moon.
If the re-entry into the atmosphere goes well, the picture that will emerge from Artemis Two will be truly encouraging.
The rocket worked.
The spacecraft was functional.
The crew operated the systems skillfully and with dignity.
And NASA at least managed to articulate a credible plan for upgrading this moment instead of waiting three years and starting over again.
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A moon landing by 2028 still remains a stretch.
Barber's instinct is that it's more like three to four years away, and that assessment is hard to dispute.
But the smoothness of this mission - from launch to flyby of the Moon - shifted that probability in the right direction.
The question is no longer whether Orion can fly.
The question is whether the landing craft, takeoff intervals and political will can keep up with it.
At least the spacecraft managed to do its job.
Artemis Two tells a story of inspiration and science.
The events of last night were reminiscent of the Apollo program.
At a time when this world lacks optimism, just as there was very little of it in the 1960s with wars around the world and civil unrest at home in the US, it was a moment in time when we could remind ourselves, at least for one night, that we are all one.
We can see that image of the Earth.
This is by no means the end of the story, this is just a test flight for the ultimate moon landing - not just one, but many more to come.
Watch a video about Neil Armstrong, the first man to set foot on the Moon
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