And how much farther will they travel than the Apollo 13 crew?

Beyond moon photos, NASA's AVATAR experiment on Artemis II uses astronaut blood samples on chips to study and solve space's impact on the human body.

The Artemis II mission launches this week as a first step toward returning to the moon and reaching Mars. Materials scientist Debbie Senesky explains the material tech that makes these missions possible.

The Orion spacecraft will take four crew members and one commode around the moon and back as part of the Artemis II mission. In April 2025, National Geographic worked with NASA and filmed the astronauts at an Orion space capsule model in Houston.

The virtual event featured Hansen speaking live from aboard NASA's Orion spacecraft, approximately three days into the 10-day lunar flyby mission.

Now hurtling home from the moon, the Artemis II astronauts took a poignant page from Apollo 8 earlier this week, proposing deeply personal names for a pair of lunar craters. Commander Reid Wiseman and his crew asked permission to name one small,

(Photo: A view of Earth taken by NASA astronaut and Artemis II Commander Reid Wiseman from one of the Orion spacecraft's four windows; Credit: NASA/Reuters)