More than half a century after the Apollo programme’s last crewed flight to the Moon, three men and one woman are preparing for a lunar journey in American space exploration.

The NASA mission Artemis II is slated to lift off from Florida and venture to Earth’s natural satellite with a targeted launch time of 18:24 (EDT) on Wednesday, 1 April (2 April 12:24 2 SA time).

The crew will not land but are instead on a mission to fly by, much as Apollo 8 did in 1968.

Americans Reid Wiseman, Victor Glober and Christina Koch, along with Canadian Jeremy Hansen, will carry out the approximately 10-day trip.

The mission will mark a series of firsts: the first time a woman, a person of colour and a non-American will venture on a Moon mission.

It is also the inaugural crewed flight of NASA’s new lunar rocket, SLS.

The rocket is designed to allow the United States to repeatedly return to the Moon in years to come, with the goal of establishing a permanent base that will offer a stepping stone for further exploration.

“We’re going back to the Moon because it’s the next step in our journey to Mars,” said Wiseman, the Artemis II commander, on a NASA podcast.

Space Race 2.0?

The Artemis programme, named in honour of Apollo’s goddess twin, aims to test technologies needed to one day send humans to Mars.

That ambition presents a challenge, compounded by pressure to achieve it before China does.

China is currently aiming to land humans on the Moon by 2030.

Beijing is also targeting the lunar South Pole for its natural resource potential.

The competition recalls the 1960s-era Space Race between the US and the Soviet Union, but Harvard professor Matthew Hersch said that rivalry was “unique” and “will not be repeated anytime soon.”

He told AFP the Chinese are “not really competing with anyone but themselves.”

Washington’s lunar programme investment is lower now than during the Cold War era, but the technology has changed.

“The computer technology that supports the Artemis II crew would be almost unimaginable to the Apollo 8 crew, which went to the Moon in a spacecraft with the electronics of a modern high-end toaster oven,” Hersch said.

ALSO READ: WATCH | International crew takes off for space station

The Artemis 2 mission will not be without risks, even by NASA’s own admission.

The crew will board a spacecraft that has never carried humans or travelled to the Moon, which is more than 384 000km from Earth, roughly 1 000 times further away than the International Space Station.

“We don’t accept anything less than perfect, otherwise we’re accepting greater risk,” NASA’s former chief astronaut Peggy Whitson told AFP.

“That is an important process that everyone has to embrace in order for us to be really successful, because we have to live with that knowledge, because of our space flight history, that when accidents happen, people will die,” she said.

Minimising risks and preventing disaster will involve the crew performing a series of checks and manoeuvres while still in Earth’s vicinity.

If all goes well, they will set forth for the Moon.

Ambitious timeline

The crew’s objective will be to verify that both the rocket and the spacecraft are in working order, in the hopes of paving the way for a return and Moon landing in 2028, the final year of President Donald Trump’s term.

That deadline has raised questions among experts, in part because Washington is relying on the private sector’s technological progress.

The astronauts will require a second vehicle to descend to the Moon’s surface, a lunar lander that remains under development by rival space companies owned by billionaires Elon Musk and Jeff Bezos.

ALSO READ: Smiles, thumbs ups and a safe return for ‘stranded’ Nasa astronauts

The Artemis programme has been affected by delays and cost overruns.

NASA hopes that Artemis II can recreate the rare moment of unity that Apollo 8 provided when a crew flew by the Moon on Christmas Eve 1968.

In the shadow of a turbulent year, approximately one billion people worldwide tuned in to their television sets to follow the journey of Frank Borman, Jim Lovell and Bill Anders.

The astronauts immortalised the “Earthrise” photograph taken from lunar orbit.

Nearly 60 years later, the crew of Artemis 2 will have their opportunity to make their mark.

ALSO READ: NASA delays moon mission over frigid weather