NASA's Artemis II crew got off to a great start on Wednesday as their Orion spacecraft reached Earth orbit after a spectacular launch from the Kennedy Space Center in Florida.
After a day of checking the spacecraft's systems, NASA astronauts Reid Wiseman, Victor Glover and Christina Koch, along with CSA astronaut Jeremy Hansen (Canadian Space Agency), have just completed a critical burn that puts them on track for a close encounter with the moon about 250,000 miles away - the first since Apollo 17 in 1972. It is also the first lunar mission ever with a woman, a person of color and a woman Non-US astronaut as part of the crew.
The Orion fired its main engine just 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 is doing pretty well up here on the way to the Moon. We just wanted to let everyone on the planet who worked to make Artemis happen, that we clearly felt the power of your perseverance in every second of that burn. Humanity has shown once again what we are capable of, and it is your hopes for the future that now carry us on this journey around the Moon."
The agency also shared a video (below) showing the key moments of the mission from now on. This includes a multi-day trip to the moon, a flight around our nearest neighbor, a return trip and a splashdown off the coast of California. The entire mission is expected to last ten days and pave the way for a manned lunar landing as part of the highly anticipated Artemis IV mission, which could take place as early as 2028.
After a short sleep aboard Orion after a once-in-a-lifetime day for the four crew members, they were awakened at 2:35 p.m. ET by John Legend and Andre 3000 Green light Playback via speakers.
Wiseman, Glover, Koch and Hansen then began their first full day of activities on the Artemis II mission, which included testing engines, navigation and life support systems to ensure everything was working properly before embarking on the rest of the journey that will take them far from our planet and into the history books.
