KENNEDY SPACE CENTER, Fla.—Three Americans and a Canadian launched into orbit Wednesday from Florida’s Space Coast on the first leg of a nine-day journey around the moon on the most powerful rocket ever to ride humans.
Sitting atop a 322-foot-tall (98-meter) Space Launch System rocket, 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 roared to life to propel the nearly 6 million pound rocket from its mounts at Launch Complex 39B. Together, the engines and boosters generated 8.8 million pounds of thrust, surpassing the Saturn V rocket used for NASA’s Apollo moon missions.
Moments later, the rocket roared into the sky, reaching spectators several miles away, leaving a trail of smoldering fire and smoke.
Commander Reid Wiseman, a 50-year-old Navy captain and former test pilot, quietly radios 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 spotlight
The launch of Artemis II is a major milestone for NASA. The agency has spent nearly $100 billion on elements of the Artemis program over 20 years and is now competing with China to return humans to the lunar surface. Artemis II also made history in the annals of space exploration. Astronauts last left the Moon in 1972, and no one has returned since.
This mission will not reach the ground. That will have to wait for a future flight, currently scheduled for Artemis IV in 2028. NASA is working with SpaceX and Blue Origin to shuttle 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 transport astronauts from Earth to the Moon and then return the crews home at the end of the mission. The first major milestone was Wednesday’s successful launch, which set the stage for manual pilot demos, trajectory correction maneuvers, testing of life support systems and, finally, a thousands-mile orbit around the far side of the Moon.
