As an astronaut, you must prepare for all possible eventualities, whether it’s staying in orbit nine months longer than expected due to problems with your spacecraft or having to abort a space station mission due to a health emergency.
And if you’re one of the four Artemis II astronauts, you’ll also need a lot of composure as you wait patiently for NASA to get your rocket ready for the most significant human spaceflight in half a century.
NASA astronauts Reid Wiseman, Victor Glover, Christina Koch and Jeremy Hansen of the Canadian Space Agency were scheduled to begin their epic 10-day journey around the moon in early February, but a technical problem with the rocket that surfaced during a pre-launch test just days before liftoff forced NASA to push back the target date to March.
But another issue discovered in February pushed the launch window back to April.
About two weeks before a space mission, whether to the International Space Station or a low-Earth orbital flight, the crew enters quarantine to reduce the risk of becoming ill before launch.
The Artemis II crew was in quarantine earlier this year and expected a launch in February or March. However, with the mission now postponed until next month, she was allowed to leave her protective isolation and return to normal life.
Although NASA has not officially announced their whereabouts, it is most likely that Wiseman, Glover, Koch and Hansen have returned to activities such as regular training duties, mission preparation and normal routines with family and colleagues at NASA’s Johnson Space Center in Houston, Texas.
The crew will remain in close contact with NASA’s flight control and engineering teams at the Kennedy Space Center launch site and Johnson Space Center and monitor ongoing repairs to the SLS rocket and Orion spacecraft as engineers work on a new launch option.
Once NASA sets a specific launch date in April, the crew will return to quarantine two weeks in advance to protect their health before heading to Florida for final launch preparations.
Life as an astronaut means expecting the unexpected and dealing with all obstacles calmly and professionally. The most important thing is to stay calm, believe in the process and stay focused on the mission – no matter how often the schedule changes.
At some point the Artemis II astronauts will They’re on their way to the moon and it’s this knowledge that keeps them motivated and ready to take on whatever challenge comes their way.
