NASA’s historic Artemis 2 mission, the agency’s first crewed moon mission in over five decades, has successfully launched. The four Artemis astronauts bid their farewells and boarded the Orion capsule atop NASA’s Space Launch System (SLS) rocket. Departing from the same site that launched Apollo’s moon missions, the capsule took flight at 6:35 pm local time on April 1 to cheers from onlookers.
The crew, consisting of Commander Reid Wiseman, Victor Glover, Christina Koch from NASA, and Jeremy Hansen from the Canadian Space Agency, is the most diverse lunar team ever, featuring the first woman, person of color, and non-US citizen in NASA’s new Orion capsule. Shortly after liftoff, Commander Reid Wiseman marveled at the sight of the moon on the horizon, nearly 248,000 miles away.
While the launch was successful, Mission Control encountered a brief communication glitch when switching between tracking satellites. However, the issue was promptly resolved by resetting ground equipment. NASA administrator Jared Isaacman acknowledged the momentary concern during the launch, revealing a “partial loss of comms” around 51 minutes into the flight.
On the sixth day of the mission, Orion will reach its farthest distance from Earth, surpassing Apollo 13’s record by sailing 4,000 miles beyond the moon. This will make the Artemis astronauts the most remote travelers in history. The mission is set to conclude with a splashdown in the Pacific on the tenth flight day, approximately nine days and one hour after liftoff, with Navy recovery ships ready near San Diego to retrieve the capsule as it parachutes into the ocean.
