CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. (FN) NASA’s Artemis II spacecraft entered Earth orbit Wednesday evening after a dramatic launch from Kennedy Space Center, marking the first crewed mission to the Moon in more than half a century.
The Orion capsule, carried by the Space Launch System rocket, lifted off at 6:35 p.m. EDT and achieved orbit within minutes. The mission will last about 10 days, sending four astronauts on a 685,000‑mile journey around the Moon before returning to Earth.
Commander Reid Wiseman, Pilot Victor Glover, Mission Specialist Christina Koch, and Canadian astronaut Jeremy Hansen make up the crew. Hansen is the first non‑American to travel beyond low Earth orbit, highlighting the program’s international scope.
Artemis II is designed to test Orion’s life‑support systems, navigation, and communications in deep space. The crew will conduct a lunar flyby, traveling farther from Earth than any humans before, before looping back for a splashdown in the Pacific Ocean.
The mission is the first piloted journey to the Moon since Apollo 17 in 1972 and serves as a critical step toward Artemis III, which aims to land astronauts on the lunar surface later this decade. Orion’s main engine is scheduled to fire Thursday night to send the spacecraft out of Earth orbit and on its trajectory toward the Moon.
Beyond its scientific and technological goals, Artemis II underscores the economic and strategic importance of space exploration. The program is expected to drive innovation in aerospace, strengthen international partnerships, and inspire a new generation of scientists and engineers worldwide.
