Mark Kelly on Artemis II mission: ‘This is something we’ve never done before’

Sen. Mark Kelly (D-Ariz.), a retired NASA astronaut, said Wednesday that the Artemis II mission to the moon is uncharted territory for American space explorers. 

“They’re going to go 4,000 miles on the far side of the moon, which is something we’ve never done before, even during Apollo,” Kelly told NewsNation’s Henry Amor at Kennedy Center Space Center in Florida, while donning his NASA uniform and a camo Navy hat. 

“The Apollo crews went in low moon, low lunar orbit,” he added. “So this is something we’ve never done before.”

Kelly and his identical twin, Scott Kelly, are the first and only siblings to have traveled into orbit — although they never did it together. Mark Kelly, who retired from NASA in 2011, has spent more than 50 days in space and traveled more than 20 million miles, according to his Senate website. 

The Artemis II test flight is scheduled for 6:24 p.m. ET on Wednesday evening, a trip that will mark the first crewed mission to head toward the moon since the final Apollo flight in December 1972. It will follow the uncrewed Artemis I moon-orbiting mission in 2022. 

The Arizona senator said that while he is “incredibly excited” for the mission, he “can’t imagine” he is “nearly as excited” as crew members Victor Glover, Jeremy Hansen, Christina Koch and Reid Wiseman.

Koch, an astronaut since 2013, said during a Sunday news conference that “things are certainly starting to feel real,” according to The New York Times. Ahead of the mission, Koch and her fellow crew members are in quarantine under “strict health monitoring,” and are completing medical checks to “ensure fitness for launch,” according to a Monday release from NASA.

The 10-day mission will take the astronauts around the moon, during which NASA will test the Orion spacecraft’s life support systems for the first time with people and “lay the groundwork” for future crewed Artemis missions, NASA said in another Monday release.

“It’s a new kind of mission. I’m excited about it because this is, essentially, one of the steps we need to put U.S. astronauts back onto the surface of the moon,” Kelly remarked.

Prelaunch coverage is already underway on NASA’s YouTube channel. Full coverage will start at 12:50 p.m. ET on NASA+, the agency’s free streaming service. Coverage will continue on YouTube after Orion’s solar array wings deploy in space.

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