Artemis II will carry astronauts beyond the moon using a free-return path and new spacecraft systems, marking a different approach from Apollo missions, according to NASA and Space.com.

Astronaut Jim Lovell, who flew on two Apollo-era missions in 1968 and 1970, recorded a message for the Artemis II crew before his death in 2025.

Apollo 13 was supposed to be NASA’s third crewed mission to the surface of the moon, but nearly 56 hours into the flight, command module pilot John “Jack” Swigert radioed a troubling message to Mission Control: "OK, Houston, we've had a problem.

The mission’s goal was to land astronauts on the Moon’s Fra Mauro region and conduct scientific experiments, including geological sampling and deployment of instruments to study lunar seismic activity.

The Artemis II mission represents the first time astronauts have launched beyond low Earth orbit since 1972.

The Artemis II crew broke a record by flying 252,756 miles from Earth, the furthest humans have ever traveled. Astronauts completed a seven-hour lunar flyby, seeing a side of the moon never before seen by humans.