Wright Brothers' Plane to Fly Around Moon on Artemis 2

When NASA's Artemis 2 launches in early February, four astronauts won't be making the journey alone. Tucked inside their Orion spacecraft will be a piece of fabric from the Wright Brothers' plane that first took flight in 1903, bridging 122 years of human innovation in a single mission.

The tiny swatch of muslin fabric, just one square inch, comes on loan from the Smithsonian's National Air and Space Museum. It's the same material that covered the wings of the Wright Flyer when Orville and Wilbur Wright lifted off the dunes at Kitty Hawk, North Carolina, changing human history forever.

NASA astronauts Reid Wiseman, Victor Glover, Christina Koch, and Canadian astronaut Jeremy Hansen will spend 10 days circling the moon aboard Orion. They'll become the first humans to venture into lunar space since Apollo 17 astronauts returned home in 1972, ending a 53-year gap in deep space exploration.

The Wright Brothers artifact won't fly alone. An American flag that launched on both the first and last space shuttle missions in 1981 and 2011 will make the trip, along with a flag originally meant for the cancelled Apollo 18 mission. That flag finally gets its moment after waiting more than 50 years.

The Ripple Effect

This collection of historical treasures tells a bigger story about how far we've come. A piece of the same Wright Flyer fabric already flew to Mars on the Ingenuity helicopter, which became the first aircraft to fly on another planet. Now another piece heads to the moon, proving that the spirit of those first 12 seconds of powered flight in 1903 still propels us forward.

The mission also carries soil from "moon trees" growing at NASA's 10 research centers. These trees sprouted from seeds that orbited the moon on the uncrewed Artemis 1 test flight in 2022, creating living connections between Earth and space at 236 locations across America.

Inside Orion's cargo bay sits a 1964 photo negative from Ranger 7, NASA's first mission to send close-up images of the lunar surface back to Earth. Those pictures helped Apollo astronauts find safe landing spots decades ago, and now that same image returns to inspire the next generation of moon explorers.

An SD card loaded with millions of names from NASA's "Send Your Name to Space" campaign ensures everyday people join this historic voyage. The timing couldn't be more meaningful as America celebrates its 250th anniversary this year, with a mission that honors both where we've been and where we're headed.

From a windswept beach in North Carolina to the surface of the moon, these artifacts prove that human curiosity and courage never stop reaching higher.

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