Artemis II, NASA’s boldest mission in generations, launches crew to the Moon

KENNEDY SPACE CENTER, Fla.—Three Americans and one Canadian launched into orbit from Florida’s Space Coast on Wednesday, flying the most powerful rocket ridden by humans on the first leg of a nine-day voyage around the Moon.

Perched atop the 322-foot-tall (98-meter) Space Launch System rocket, the four astronauts lifted off from NASA’s Kennedy Space Center at 6:35 pm EDT (22:35 UTC).

Four hydrogen-fueled RS-25 engines and two solid rocket boosters flashed to life to push the nearly 6 million-pound rocket from its moorings at Launch Complex 39B. The engines and boosters collectively generated 8.8 million pounds of thrust, outclassing NASA’s Saturn V rocket used for Apollo lunar missions.

Moments later, a wave of sound reached spectators a few miles away as the rocket thundered into the sky, leaving an incandescent plume of fire and smoke in its wake.

Commander Reid Wiseman, a 50-year-old Navy captain and former test pilot, calmly radioed updates from the cockpit of the Orion spacecraft at the tip of the SLS rocket. He was joined in the cockpit by pilot Victor Glover (another Navy captain), mission specialist Christina Koch, and Canadian astronaut Jeremy Hansen.

In the limelight

The liftoff of Artemis II is a key moment for NASA. The agency has spent close to $100 billion on elements of the Artemis program over 20 years and now finds itself in competition with China to return humans to the Moon’s surface. Artemis II is also making history in the annals of space exploration. Astronauts last left the Moon in 1972, and no one has been back since.

This mission won’t land. That will have to wait for a future flight, currently targeted for Artemis IV in 2028. NASA is working with SpaceX and Blue Origin to develop human-rated landers to ferry crews between Orion spacecraft and the lunar surface. Axiom Space is developing new spacesuits for astronauts to wear on the Moon.

Artemis II is testing the transportation system NASA plans to use to get astronauts from Earth to the Moon and then return crews home at the end of their mission. The first major milestone was Wednesday’s successful launch, setting the stage for manual piloting demos, trajectory correction maneuvers, life-support system checkouts, and finally, a loop thousands of miles past the back side of the Moon.