Strange Quarks

I have been just a little bit excited about Artemis II, that launched just before 9am on Thursday morning, Adelaide time. It’s been a long time since the Apollo program ended (1972).

I still have an enduring memory of (5 year old me) watching the grainy Apollo 11 landing on our B&W TV after getting to school and being told to go home and watch it in 1969.

Watching the launch on NASA TV (YouTube) and ABC News yesterday morning with Karen was wonderful and scary at the same time, especially waiting for the passage through maximum dynamic pressure (MaxQ), solid rocket booster (SRB) separation, and main engine cutoff (MECO).

Despite a few minor problems leading up to and after launch (e.g. a launch abort system battery sensor issue on the pad, fixing the loo and a potable water system valve in orbit), it was about as flawless as it gets.

Then today, we saw a calm lead up to Trans-Lunar Injection (TLI) that sent Reid Wiseman, Victor Glover, Christina Koch, and Jeremy Hansen on their way around the Moon, further than any human has been, on a free return trajectory back to Earth on day 10, similar to the one taken by Apollo 13.

The crew will get to see a solar eclipse on day 6 when the Orion spacecraft is behind the Moon.

That humanity is going back more than half a century after Apollo is the main thing, with another test flight followed by a landing in 2028. I hope it becomes as much about exploration as anything, but I realise that there are also military and commercial interests.

Here are a few useful links for the Artemis II mission:

• Track NASA’s Artemis II Mission in Real Time – NASA
• NASA Live – NASA
• Artemis II Mission Tracker | James Webb Tracker

Enjoy.

This entry was posted on April 3, 2026 at 1:58 pm and is filed under Space Missions. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.