jsc2026m000047 How To Train For The Moon

Before the Artemis II crew journeys to the Moon inside the Orion spacecraft, they will spend countless hours practicing every aspect of their mission. At NASA’s Johnson Space Center, the Artemis II crew trains inside Orion simulators to practice procedures, troubleshoot malfunctions, and work through realistic mission scenarios. This training ensures the astronauts and flight control team are ready to operate Orion’s systems and respond to any challenge during the 10-day flight. From learning the fundamentals of Orion’s life support systems to conducting integrated simulations with flight controllers, every training session helps ensure mission success. Using Johnson’s full-scale Orion mockup in the Space Vehicle Mockup Facility and simulators like the Orion Mission Simulator and the Beta Dome, the crew is prepared for any scenario they may encounter aboard Orion during Artemis II. This is how to train for the Moon. Credit: NASA Writer: Erika Peters Editor: Phil Sexton Producers: Rad Sinyak, Erika Peters Join NASA as we go forward to the Moon and on to Mars -- discover the latest on Earth, the Solar System and beyond with a weekly update in your inbox. Subscribe at: https://www.nasa.gov/subscribe

What is said in the film

Training is all risk mitigation. What exactly the crew's going to need to be able to do, what they need to know to do those things. What's the most logical order to put all of this training in to help build that big picture for the crew? I'm Jacki Mahaffey. I'm the Artemis II chief training officer.

And this is how to train for the Moon. We're here at the Johnson Space Center, where most of the training for the Artemis II mission is happening. The Artemis II mission is the first time that we are putting human astronauts in the Orion spacecraft. They will be checking out all of the life support on Orion, making sure that everything that we plan to do in the Orion capsule is going to work really well, so that the next missions, when we go land on the moon, we can focus on that new step. This training for the crew, we've basically had to invent from the ground up.

We got together the teams of experts on how to operate the different aspects of Orion. Any particular week, I might be working with a particular set of those instructors on developing a lesson for the crew, taking a look at what is everything we think we should teach them, or ideas we have of things that they should know or be able to do, and look at which of those are going to best enable the mission success. And so we started giving them an introduction to the Orion vehicle. What kinds of systems we have on it, the basics on how they work. And then as soon as our simulators were ready and our mock ups were ready, we were in them starting to actually get hands on and see what does this look like to the crew?

What are their displays look like? How is it going to be to run a procedure in Orion? We do integrated simulations with our flight control team and the crew, working together for a particular part of the mission and driving what they're going to see on their displays, what they might see out their windows and operating in that space. I'm Toby Martin, I'm the lead engineer for the Beta Dome at the Johnson Space Center. What we have is the cockpit for the Orion simulator, which has the full simulation behind it.

And we have out the window view so they can see what's happening outside the vehicle and immerses them into the environment so that they feel like they're actually flying. We project that on this, this massive dome behind me. We have a number of projectors that are meshed together and project. That means that we can change the simulations out, and then we can change the scenarios out so that people can come in, and then we can usually accommodate that in fairly short order. I'm Grace Lauderdale, I'm the exploration project manager, and we're sitting here in the Orion mission simulator at the Johnson Space Center.

The training simulator trains the flight control team as well as the crew. The simulator is unique in that we have the communications network integrated into the sim. When we interact with the crew, it's usually to help them understand if something doesn't act right. We have instructors in another room that throws all sorts of malfunctions in there so that they're ready to solve any problems that we throw at them. They have procedures that they follow so that we help execute all of those malfunctions for that training event.

One of the things that's really important to the crew is making sure they have time to pre briefed and of course, debrief afterwards. We say often in training that the training is only as good as what you take home, what you've actually reflected on. And so when they come together not only our instructors teaching them about the vehicle, but they are teaching us back about how to have that crew perspective of working in space or the things that are going, going to matter most so that we can then go right procedures or plan their day in a way that's going to be effective. Putting them in a scenario and getting to see how they problem solve together has been a really cool experience.

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