The crewed spacecraft ‘Orion’ launched from Cape Canaveral in Florida on a Space Launch System rocket, carrying NASA astronauts Reid Wiseman, Victor Glover, Christina Koch, and Canadian Space Agency astronaut Jeremy Hansen. During its mission, the spacecraft will make one orbit around the Moon.
The 10-day expedition will allow astronauts to reach areas of space previously inaccessible to humans.
“This is Jeremy, we are setting off for the sake of all humanity,” Hansen said shortly before launch.
Launch director Charlie Blackwell-Thompson congratulated the crew, stating, “Reid, Victor, Christina, and Jeremy, you carry with you the spirit of the Artemis team, the courage of the American people, and the hopes of a new generation. Good luck, ‘Artemis-2’. Forward!”
After launch and reaching the upper layers of the atmosphere, Commander Wiseman contacted Mission Control, reporting: “Beautiful view! — We have a magnificent Moonrise.”
This mission is the first in NASA's Artemis program, which began in 2017 and aims to establish a long-term U.S. presence on the Moon over the next decade, as reported by Reuters.
The launch marked a significant milestone that NASA has been preparing for over a decade. Boeing and Northrop Grumman confirmed that their systems are safe for transporting humans to space, while NASA increasingly turns to more affordable rockets from SpaceX and other contractors.
The ‘Orion’ spacecraft, designed for NASA by Lockheed Martin, will separate from the final stage of the SLS rocket three and a half hours after launch, after which the crew will take control to perform the first of many mission tasks.
The ‘Artemis-2’ mission represents a critically important step in the American lunar program, aiming for the first crewed landing on the Moon in 2028 as part of the ‘Artemis-4’ mission.
NASA plans to carry out this landing, which will be the first since the last Apollo mission in 1972, while China is developing its own lunar programs with the goal of landing astronauts by 2030.
As part of ‘Artemis-2’, astronauts will reach a distance of about 406 thousand kilometers from Earth, marking the farthest journey ever undertaken by humans.
The previous record was held by the crew of the ‘Apollo-13’ mission, which in 1970, faced with technical problems, was unable to execute the planned landing on the Moon.
In 2022, NASA launched its first unmanned ‘Artemis’ mission, sending ‘Orion’ on a similar route around the Moon.
‘Artemis-2’ will be a more serious test for ‘Orion’ and the SLS rocket, which has been in development since 2010. The cost of the program has increased from $2 billion to $4 billion per launch.
SpaceX and Blue Origin are also competing in the development of landing modules that NASA intends to use to transport astronauts to the lunar surface.
