Artemis II Gets a Safety Net: Elite Rescue Team on Standby for Moon Mission

NASA's Artemis II crew is at Kennedy Space Center preparing for a possible Wednesday launch on a nine-day, nearly half-a-million-mile round trip to the Moon, the first crewed lunar mission since 1972. A global Air Force rescue unit, Detachment 3, is on standby with rehearsed contingency plans to retrieve astronauts if needed, including a simulated splashdown where a C-17 delivers equipment and pararescue jumpers extract the crew onto a survival life raft, with supplies to sustain them for 72–96 hours.