The astronauts Reid Wiseman, Victor Glover, Christina Koch and Jeremy Hansen are preparing to launch into space on a trajectory that will make them the first humans to travel to the Moon in over half a century.
Their 10-day mission, known as Artemis II, loops around the Moon but will not land. It will see them travel 4,700 miles (7,600 kilometres) beyond the lunar far side in Nasa’s Orion spacecraft. As such, the four astronauts will travel further from Earth than any humans before them.
The quarter-of-a-million mile Artemis II expedition is audacious, but it’s the last five minutes of the mission that might be the most cause for concern for the safety of the astronauts.
