The mission is already being seen as "a clear success" at the ESA although the flight is still under way, Anna Fogtman told Poland's PAP news agency.
Artemis II is the first crewed mission to fly around the moon since the Apollo era.
The Orion capsule is due to splash down in the Pacific Ocean early on Saturday Polish time.
The mission is seen as a major step toward NASA’s planned return of astronauts to the moon later this decade.
Fogtman, who works in the ESA’s space medicine team and leads radiation protection operations at the agency’s European Astronaut Centre in Cologne, Germany, said the mission is doing exactly what it was meant to do: test key systems in real deep-space conditions with astronauts on board.
“Artemis II is above all a test flight,” she said.
The Space Launch System rocket carrying the Orion capsule for the Artemis II mission lifts off from the Kennedy Space Center in Titusville, Florida, USA, April 1, 2026. Photo: EPA/CRISTOBAL HERRERA-ULASHKEVICH
For the first time, NASA’s Orion spacecraft and Space Launch System (SLS) rocket carried a crew toward the moon in order to check life-support systems, navigation, emergency procedures and how astronauts work in a confined cabin during an actual mission.
She said the fact that equipment problems appeared before the mission reached its halfway point did not weaken that assessment.
In her view, that is precisely the purpose of such a flight, to see how the spacecraft, the crew and teams on the ground respond when difficulties arise.
Fogtman said the mission is also important because astronauts are making direct observations of the moon and recording what they see during the flyby.
While Artemis II is not a landing mission, she said such observations can still help future crews better understand the environment in which later missions will operate.
Asked why no crewed mission had headed toward the moon for more than 50 years after Apollo, Fogtman pointed to political, strategic and financial factors.
She said Apollo achieved its purpose in its time, while the cost of continuing crewed deep-space missions was hard to justify.
In the decades that followed, space agencies built up technology, procedures, operational experience and international cooperation in missions closer to Earth.
“A flight into deep space requires not one leap, but a whole system of expertise and reliability,” she said.
Fogtman added that the radiation conditions on Artemis II have so far been mild. That means the protection systems developed by her team are unlikely to face a serious test before the mission ends, she said.
She also cautioned that a human return to the lunar surface remains some way off.
Orion can take astronauts to lunar orbit, she said, but further progress will require improvements to the spacecraft, a lander able to move crew and cargo between orbit and the moon, durable habitats, dependable life-support systems and technology that can use resources found on the lunar surface.
(rt/gs)
Source: polskieradio24.pl, PAP