Meet the first Artemis I crew member!!️🌕 🐑 The specially trained woolly astronaut, @shaunthesheep, has been assigned a seat on the Artemis I mission to the Moon. Shaun will be flying on the Artemis I mission, which will be the first flight of @nasa's Orion spacecraft with our European Service Module, planned to go around the Moon and back. This mission is not carrying a human crew but will instead be controlled from the ground with its woolly specialist as a passenger. Orion and its European Service Module will be launched by the Space Launch System from @nasakennedy in Florida, USA. The spacecraft will enter a low-Earth orbit before the rocket’s upper stage fires to take it into a translunar orbit. The spacecraft will perform a flyby of the Moon, using lunar gravity to gain speed and propel itself 70 000 km beyond the Moon, almost half a million km from Earth – farther than any human, or sheep, has ever travelled. In preparation for this flight, Shaun began a programme of astronaut training and familiarisation with the Orion spacecraft and its European Service Module in 2020, travelling to various locations across Europe and the USA to see different aspects of the mission. This training was documented and will be presented in a series of blog posts leading up to launch. With a keen passion for exploring, Shaun took flight on the special Airbus ‘Zero G’ A310 aircraft during one of its parabolic flights that recreates the ‘weightless’ conditions similar to those experienced in space. Under the supervision of our team, this flight prepared Shaun for his role as a space traveller in his film ‘A Shaun the Sheep Movie: Farmageddon’, released in 2019. It offered insight into the rigorous training that all astronauts undertake to prepare for spaceflight, which he will now experience for real. Follow Shaun's training for Artemis I and preparations for the first European Service Module flight to the Moon on blogs.esa.int/orion/ 📸 @europeanspaceagency / @aardmananimations 📸 @nasa 📸 ESA–A. Conigli 📸 ESA–A. Conigli 📸 NASA–Frank Michaux 📸 ESA/Aardman #ShaunTheSheep #ForwardToTheMoon, #ExploreFarther #Orion #SLS #LunarExploration #Artermis