KENNEDY SPACE CENTER, Florida – Three Americans and a Canadian blasted into orbit Wednesday from Florida’s Space Coast on the first leg of a nine-day trip around the moon on the most powerful rocket ever powered by humans.
Sitting atop a 322-foot-tall (98 m) Space Launch System rocket, the four astronauts lifted off from NASA’s Kennedy Space Center at 6:35 p.m. EDT (22:35 UTC).
Four hydrogen-fueled RS-25 engines and two solid rocket boosters activated to push the approximately 6 million pound rocket out of its moorings in Launch Complex 39B. The engine and booster collectively generated 8.8 million pounds of thrust, surpassing NASA’s Saturn V rocket used for the Apollo lunar missions.
Moments later, as the rocket thundered into the sky, a wave of sound reached spectators a few miles away, releasing a fiery plume of fire and smoke.
Commander Reed Wiseman, a 50-year-old Navy captain and former test pilot, calmly broadcast radio updates from the cockpit of the Orion spacecraft tipped by an SLS rocket. Joining him in the cockpit were pilot Victor Glover (another Navy captain), mission specialist Christina Koch, and Canadian astronaut Jeremy Hansen.
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The launch of Artemis II is a significant moment for NASA. The agency has spent about $100 billion over 20 years on elements of the Artemis program and is now in competition with China to return humans to the lunar surface. Artemis II is also making history in the history of space exploration. Astronauts last left the Moon in 1972 and no one has returned since.
This mission will not land. This 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 a human-rated lander to carry crews between the 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 that NASA plans to use to get astronauts from Earth to the Moon and then return crews home at the end of their missions. The first major milestone was Wednesday’s successful launch, which set the stage for a manual piloting demo, trajectory correction maneuvers, life-support system checkout and ultimately a loop thousands of miles past the moon.
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