Did you know that South Africa plays an important role in the ongoing Artemis II moon mission!?
Gauteng, South Africa (08 April 2026) – A South African National Space Agency ground station in Hartebeeshoek plays a key role in the ongoing historic mission to the moon!
The Artemis II mission is NASA’s first crewed mission under the Artemis program. Currently, four astronauts – Reid Wiseman, Victor Glover, Christina Koch, and Jeremy Hansen – are on the second leg of their 10-day journey around the moon and back.
The crew on board the Orion spacecraft made history this week when they set the record for the farthest anyone has travelled from Earth, breaking the current record set in 1970 by the Apollo 13 crew.
The Artemis II astronauts have already begun their trajectory home, after swinging around the far side of the moon where they became the first people to see what no human eyes have seen in person before.
The world has followed the crew in their mission and we’ve already cried all the tears, too.
This week, the astronauts left a mark on our hearts and on the moon when the crew proposed a name for a bright, unnamed lunar crater they had observed. They called it Carroll, honouring mission Commander Reid Wiseman’s late wife, who in 2020 passed away after a battle with cancer.
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South Africa has been watching closely, too.
In its key involvement in the Artemis II mission, a ground station based in Hartebeeshoek has been tracking and monitoring the Orion spacecraft and reporting directly to NASA, Vox Weather Girls share.
The South African National Space Agency has supported international space missions for decades now. The Hartebeeshoek facility, in particular, was established in the 1960s as a NASA tracking station and has since become a key player in global space operations.
The station provides tracking and communication support for satellites and space missions, including those travelling beyond Earth and even missions like this one, involving astronauts.
What’s more is that South Africa is currently building one of only three antennas on the planet that will help NASA in future moon missions, based in the Karoo near Matjiesfontein!
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Now on their path back to Earth, Artemis II is scheduled to splash down in the Pacific Ocean on Friday April 10, completing their historic 10-day mission to the moon and back.
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