Artemis II began Wednesday with the Space Launch System rocket lifting off from NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida, carrying three Americans and one Canadian on the first crewed trip around the moon in more than half a century.
Launch director Charlie Blackwell-Thompson told the crew right before liftoff: “On this historic mission, you take with you the heart of this Artemis team, the daring spirit of the American people and our partners across the globe, and the hopes and dreams of a new generation,” and then added, “Good luck, Godspeed Artemis II. Let’s go.”
The rocket’s ascent drew large crowds to the launch site and nearby roads and beaches, in an atmosphere NASA compared to earlier moonshot eras. Artemis II marked a new-era leadoff for NASA’s plan to reach the moon again in a new landing campaign, according to the framing of the Artemis program.
On board the Orion capsule, Commander Reid Wiseman described early mission moments as the spacecraft aligned with the target, saying from the capsule, “We have a beautiful moonrise, we’re headed right at it.” His crewmates are pilot Victor Glover, Christina Koch, and Jeremy Hansen.
NASA Administrator Jared Isaacman told reporters following liftoff that “NASA is back in the business of sending astronauts to the moon,” describing the half-century pause as a brief intermission. The mission crew is described as the most diverse lunar crew ever, with the first woman, the first person of color, and the first non-U.S. citizen riding in Orion.
Ahead of launch, NASA faced heightened scrutiny during fueling and countdown preparations. Hydrogen fuel started flowing into the rocket after which, earlier this year, dangerous hydrogen leaks had forced a lengthy delay during a countdown test; the launch proceeded after a countdown that NASA said avoided significant hydrogen leaks.
NASA also addressed last-minute technical issues before launch, including “bad battery sensors” and problems getting commands through to the rocket’s flight termination system, which NASA said were resolved quickly enough for the mission to proceed. The launch also followed preparations that included loading more than 700,000 gallons of fuel—about 2.6 million liters—into the 32-story Space Launch System rocket on the pad.
For the mission timeline, the crew planned to stay close to Earth for the first 25 hours of its 10-day flight, testing the capsule in an Earth orbit before a main engine burn propels it toward the moon. NASA said the crew would not pause for an orbit of the moon in the way Apollo 8’s crew did, but would instead pass by the moon and continue thousands of miles beyond before turning back and returning to a splashdown in the Pacific.
Once in a high Earth orbit, the mission planned to have the astronauts assume manual control and practice steering Orion around the rocket’s detached upper stage, including getting as close as 33 feet (10 meters). NASA said the procedures are meant to test Orion’s handling in case the self-flying feature fails and the pilots must take control.
On the lunar flyby itself, NASA said the moon would appear roughly the size of a basketball held at arm’s length from the Orion windows, and that the crew would take turns using cameras to view features never before seen through human eyes. NASA said lighting conditions could also allow the astronauts to catch “snippets of a total solar eclipse,” wearing eclipse glasses as the moon briefly blocks the sun from their perspective.
NASA has said all of its moon-landing plans depend on Artemis II going well, including a longer-term goal of establishing a sustainable human presence on the lunar surface supported by robots. NASA also said it had moved into higher-risk territory compared with Artemis I, because Artemis II adds life-support equipment and crew essentials such as a toilet, which had been absent on the uncrewed Artemis I mission.
NASA disclosed in the run-up to launch that the capsule’s toilet was already experiencing trouble, with Koch telling mission control that it shut down seconds after she activated it. Mission control advised use of a handheld bag-and-funnel system for now while engineers worked on how to handle the “lunar loo.”
Lori Glaze said before launch that “There’s always been a lot riding on this mission,” and that the teams were “energized” as NASA accelerated the lunar launch pace and focused on surface operations. Mission science chief Nicky Fox said earlier this week that Artemis offers a “fresh beginning,” adding, “There are a lot of people who don’t remember Apollo. There are generations who weren’t alive when Apollo launched. This is their Apollo,” and the astronaut Victor Glover added, “It’s the story of humanity. Not Black history, not women’s history, but that it becomes human history.”
As Artemis II heads into its test flight toward the moon, NASA’s leaders acknowledged the stakes. NASA has refused to release its risk assessment, and managers said its odds are “better than 50-50,” while also leaving uncertainty about how much higher the chance of success is. The launch followed a history of delays and technical problems that included hydrogen leaks during ground tests—an ongoing challenge NASA said it still does not fully understand—along with heat-shield damage that Artemis I experienced on its return.
Charlie Duke, a surviving Apollo moonwalker, told the crew in a note: “I’m cheering you on.” Duke’s message and NASA’s emphasis on a lunar proving-ground come as Artemis II sets the stage for later missions that include a planned practice schedule for docking Orion with a lunar lander ahead of a subsequent landing near the moon’s south pole.