Orion Capabilities for Deep Space Enable Crewed Artemis Moon Missions

For Moon missions a thousand times farther than the International Space Station, NASA’s Orion spacecraft must be able to sustain astronauts on its own for weeks at a time and be robust enough to reliably operate in the harsh space environment near the Moon and beyond where the safety of Earth is days away. Orion features technology advancements and innovations that have been incorporated into the spacecraft’s design and its systems have been developed to facilitate integration of new technical innovations as they become available in the future. Orion is the spacecraft that will carry astronauts from Earth to the Gateway ahead of lunar surface missions beginning in 2024, and bring them safely home.