Cape Canaveral, United States. Four astronauts launched from Florida on Wednesday on NASA’s Artemis II mission, a crewed voyage around the moon that marks the United States’ latest step toward returning humans to the lunar surface later this decade.
The mission is seen as a key milestone in NASA’s Artemis program, as the United States targets future landings amid competition with China.
Launch and spacecraft
NASA’s Space Launch System (SLS) rocket, topped with its Orion crew capsule, lifted off just before sunset from the agency’s Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral, Florida, carrying three U.S. astronauts and one Canadian astronaut into Earth orbit. The 32-story-tall vehicle climbed into clear skies, trailing a column of thick, white vapor.
NASA Administrator Jared Isaacman said the launch was an opening act for subsequent missions that would include construction of a moon base to support the “enduring presence we’re trying to create on the surface.”
Crew and mission profile
If the mission proceeds as planned, NASA astronauts Reid Wiseman, Victor Glover and Christina Koch, along with Canadian Space Agency astronaut Jeremy Hansen, will fly around the moon and return in a nearly 10-day expedition, testing the spacecraft while venturing deeper into space than humans have ever gone.
Minutes before liftoff, Hansen, strapped inside the Orion capsule, told mission control in Houston: “This is Jeremy, we are going for all humanity.”
Artemis program context and timeline
Artemis II is the debut crewed test flight in the Artemis program, successor to NASA’s Cold War-era Apollo project, and the first mission in 53 years to send astronauts in the vicinity of the moon, out of Earth’s orbit.
The mission is intended as a dress rehearsal for a NASA bid to land humans on the lunar surface later this decade, after one more crewed mission around the moon. NASA is targeting 2028 for Artemis IV, a landing of astronauts on the moon’s South Pole, with the aim of beating China’s planned crewed mission to the same lunar region as early as 2030.
The last time astronauts walked on the moon was the final Apollo mission in 1972.
After nearly three years of training, the crew is the first to fly in NASA’s Artemis program, a multibillion-dollar venture established in 2017 to build a long-term U.S. presence on the moon over the next decade and beyond, serving as a stepping stone to eventual missions to Mars.
Launch director Charlie Blackwell-Thompson told the crew: “Reid, Victor, Christina and Jeremy, on this historic mission you take with you the heart of this Artemis team, the daring spirit of the American people and our partners across the globe, and the hopes and dreams of a new generation.”
What part of the Artemis II mission will you be watching most closely?