The landmark mission, dubbed Artemis II, is on track to lift off as soon as February.
NASA says the Artemis II lunar orbital mission could launch as early as Feb. 6. Although delays are common and expected in human spaceflight (this mission has backup launch opportunities through April), it's always exciting to have a date to plan for. Photo credit: NASA/Kim Shiflett
-- Jonathan Serrie (@jonathanserrie.bsky.social) Jan 5, 2026 at 11:32 AM
[image or embed]
Another view ...
NASA Opens Artemis II Public Name Submissions
orbitaltoday.com
... NASA is inviting the public to submit names that will fly inside the Orion spacecraft on Artemis II, a crewed mission expected to travel around the Moon and return to Earth.
The agency says names will be stored on an SD card carried aboard Orion. The signup window is open until Jan. 21, 2026, and participants can generate a digital boarding pass after registering.
Names Will Fly Inside Orion
The campaign is part of NASA's long-running "Send Your Name" outreach, which flies public submissions on spacecraft as a payload.
For Artemis II, the SD card will ride inside Orion with the astronaut crew.
NASA says the sign-up process uses a personal identification number to retrieve a boarding pass later, but the PIN cannot be recovered if it is lost. ...
... travel around the Moon and return to Earth ...
OK, that prompted me to think about the computer capability of the Apollo missions.
I found this ...
Apollo Guidance Computer
en.wikipedia.org
... The Apollo Guidance Computer (AGC) was a digital computer produced for the Apollo program that was installed on board each Apollo command module (CM) and Apollo Lunar Module (LM).
The AGC provided computation and electronic interfaces for guidance, navigation, and control of the spacecraft.[3]
The AGC was the first computer based on silicon integrated circuits (ICs).[4][5]
The computer's performance was comparable to the first generation of home computers from the 1970s, such as the Kenbak-1, Apple II, TRS-80, and Commodore PET.[6] At around 2 cubic feet (57 litres) in size, the AGC held 4,100 IC packages.[5] ...
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