NASA has launched its Artemis II mission, sending four astronauts on a crewed flight around the Moon in a major step toward returning humans to the lunar surface later this decade.
The mission lifted off on Wednesday from the Kennedy Space Centre in Florida aboard NASA’s Space Launch System (SLS) rocket carrying the Orion crew capsule. The crew includes NASA astronauts Reid Wiseman, Victor Glover and Christina Koch, along with Canadian Space Agency astronaut Jeremy Hansen.
Artemis II marks the first crewed mission of NASA’s Artemis programme and the first time in more than five decades that astronauts will travel beyond low Earth orbit toward the Moon. The nearly 10-day mission will take the spacecraft roughly 406,000 kilometres from Earth, the farthest distance humans have travelled in space.
The flight will serve as a critical test of Orion’s systems, including navigation, life support, and manoeuvrability, as NASA prepares for future lunar landing missions. The agency aims to land astronauts on the Moon’s surface later in the decade, with plans for a sustained presence and eventual missions beyond the Moon.
The launch also represents a significant milestone for the SLS rocket programme, which has been under development for over a decade. The mission is part of broader international competition in space exploration, with multiple countries and private companies advancing lunar ambitions.
NASA officials stated that Artemis II will validate key technologies and operational procedures ahead of future missions, including a planned crewed lunar landing later in the programme.