This season picks up some time (maybe 6 months?) after the end of Season 1. The astronauts on the moon were all able to safely return to Earth. While season 1 had 10 episodes, season 2 only gets 7.
The season-wide theme is downsizing, err, I mean budget cuts. The current administration hates Space Force and just wants to slash their budget into nothing. The ridiculousness of the show has been amped up for this season. Did I say ridiculousness? I meant implausibility. They have a single manned mission, already enroute, to Mars. But because of budget cuts, the actual landing on Mars is cut. How is this possible? It isn’t. I am guessing the greatest cost is building a spaceship and launching it. Since this has already happened, that is what is known as a sunk cost. So why scrap a mission that literally will cost nothing more? Because the writers are writers, and not people with brains.