NASA’s Artemis II crew got off to a great start on Wednesday when their Orion spacecraft reached Earth orbit following a spectacular launch from the Kennedy Space Center in Florida.
After a day checking the spacecraft’s systems, NASA astronauts Reid Wiseman, Victor Glover, and Christina Koch, together with CSA (Canadian Space Agency) astronaut Jeremy Hansen, have just executed a critical burn that sets them on course for a close encounter with the moon some 250,000 miles away — the first since Apollo 17 in 1972. It’s also the first-ever lunar mission with a woman, a person of color, and a non‑U.S. astronaut as part of the crew.
The Orion ignited its main engine shortly before 8 p.m. ET. on Thursday in a burn lasting 5 minutes and 50 seconds. NASA described it as “a good burn” as the spacecraft moved away from Earth and toward the moon.
From the spacecraft, Hansen added: “The crew’s feeling pretty good up here, on our way to the moon. We just wanted to communicate to everyone around the planet who’s worked to make Artemis possible that we firmly felt the power of your perseverance during every second of that burn. Humanity has once against shown what we are capable of and it’s your hopes for the future that carry us now on this journey around the moon.”
The agency also shared a video (below) showing the key moments of the mission from hereon in. They include a voyage to the moon lasting several days, a flyaround of our nearest neighbor, a return journey, and a splashdown off the coast of California. The entire mission is set to last 10 days and paves the way for a crewed lunar landing as part of the much-anticipated Artemis IV mission, which could take place as early as 2028.
After a short sleep aboard the Orion following a day like no other for the four crew members, they were awoken at 2:35 p.m. ET by John Legend and Andre 3000’s Green Light playing through speakers.
Wiseman, Glover, Koch, and Hansen then embarked on their first full day of activities on the Artemis II mission, which included testing engines, navigation, and life support systems to ensure that everything is functioning as it should before committing to the rest of the journey that will take them far from our planet and into the history books.