NASA Launches Astronauts to Moon Orbit
Four astronauts are on a 10‑day journey around the Moon after NASA’s Artemis II mission successfully lifted off from Florida on Wednesday, marking the first crewed lunar flyby in more than half a century.
The Space Launch System (SLS) rocket launched from Kennedy Space Center’s Launch Pad 39B at approximately 6:35 pm local time (2235 GMT), carrying the Orion spacecraft with Americans Reid Wiseman, Victor Glover and Christina Koch, along with Canadian Jeremy Hansen aboard. The mission is the first crewed flight of the SLS rocket and the Orion capsule, designed to carry humans deeper into space than any system since the Apollo era.
“We have a beautiful moonrise. We’re headed right at it,” Wiseman, the mission commander, said after entering orbit. The astronauts remained in Earth orbit following launch, conducting proximity operations demonstrations to test how the Orion spacecraft, named Integrity, performs during manual close‑range maneuvering around another spacecraft.
Shortly after launch, NASA officials identified minor technical issues. “There was a controller issue with the toilet when they spun it up,” said Amit Kshatriya, NASA’s associate administrator, during a post‑launch briefing. “We’re just getting started.” A temporary communication problem with the spacecraft was also reported but later resolved. NASA Administrator Jared Isaacman said the astronauts were “safe, they’re secure, and they’re in great spirits.”
If the mission proceeds as planned, the crew will set a record by venturing farther from Earth than any human before, surpassing the mark set by Apollo 13 in 1970. The mission will also send the first person of colour (Glover), the first woman (Koch) and the first non‑American (Hansen) on a lunar voyage.
President Donald Trump praised the launch in a televised address. “Let me begin by congratulating the team at NASA and our brave astronauts on the successful launch of Artemis II; it was quite something,” he said. Earlier, he posted on Truth Social: “We are WINNING, in Space, on Earth, and everywhere in between – Economically, Militarily, and now, BEYOND THE STARS. Nobody comes close! America doesn’t just compete, we DOMINATE, and the whole World is watching.”
The current era of American lunar investment has frequently been portrayed as an effort to compete with China, which aims to land humans on the Moon by 2030. The Artemis program has come under pressure from Trump, who has pushed its pace with the hope that boots will hit the lunar surface before his second term ends in early 2029. The projected date for a Moon landing is 2028.
NASA launched its first Artemis mission without crew in 2022, sending Orion on a similar path around the Moon. The Artemis II mission, years in the making, faced repeated delays and technical setbacks, including a hydrogen leak that pushed the launch from an initial February window.
Local authorities estimated that approximately 400,000 people gathered near Florida’s Space Coast to witness the launch.