What NASA is looking for in the coming days as Artemis II loops around the moon

Face The Nation What NASA chief Jared Isaacman is looking for in the coming days as Artemis II loops around the moon .chip { background-image: url('/fly/bundles/cbsnewscore/images/chip-bgd/chip-bgd-face-the-nation.jpg'); } By Kaia Hubbard Kaia Hubbard Politics Reporter Kaia Hubbard is a politics reporter for CBS News Digital, based in Washington, D.C. Read Full Bio Kaia Hubbard April 5, 2026 / 1:12 PM EDT / CBS News Add CBS News on Google Washington — NASA Administrator Jared Isaacman outlined on Sunday the most critical moments he expects in the coming days as Artemis II astronauts continue their journey around the far side of the moon, describing it as a key test mission in the quest to return humans to the lunar surface.The Artemis II mission launched last week, marking the first piloted moonshot since the end of the Apollo program more than five decades ago. On Monday, the operation's four crew members are set to surpass the Apollo 13 record for the farthest distance from Earth that humans have traveled. "The primary objective right now for this phase of the mission is continuing to gather data from the ECLS system, the life support system on the Orion spacecraft," Isaacman said on "Face the Nation with Margaret Brennan."The mission is intended as a test flight to lay the groundwork for future efforts to land astronauts on the moon, traveling in a crew capsule known as the Orion. Isaacman noted that "this is the first time we've ever had humans onboard the Orion spacecraft.""We want to gather as much data as we possibly can for that," he said. "Of course, there's various science experiments, there's lunar observations, but learning as much as we can about Orion is critically important, because Artemis III is a year away."Isaacman outlined that Artemis III, slated to launch in mid-2027, will test the same spacecraft with lunar landers, followed by Artemis IV in 2028, "where we're going to use this spacecraft, transfer crew to the landers, and put Ameri...