50 years after the last Apollo mission, NASA is now just 48 hours away from returning humans to the Moon with Artemis II. This historic 10-day mission marks the first crewed launch of the Space Launch System (SLS) rocket and Orion spacecraft as it carries four pioneer astronauts around the Moon.
In this photo story, we’ll look at how the crew and rocket got to this point of being ready to launch, looking at all the hard work and challenges that went on during the unmanned Artemis 1 foundation in 2022, through the crew’s high-pressure survival training and complex hardware integration. The images that follow show how the most powerful rocket in the world is being developed and how the diverse crew is preparing for the permanent presence of human beings on the Moon.