NASA is quietly rewriting the script for human exploration of the Red Planet, turning robots from remote-controlled tools into autonomous partners tasked with keeping crews alive far from home.

The Artemis 2 astronauts will venture deeper into space than any human has gone before. That presents some seriously exciting research opportunities.

Hundreds of people from at least 15 different countries have journeyed to the International Space Station (ISS), but the habitable artificial satellite has only hosted human astronauts, until the ...