NASA’s Artemis II Mission Leaves Earth Orbit for Flight around Moon

For the first time in more than 50 years, astronauts on a NASA mission are required to fly around the Moon after successfully burning the key to Orion’s main engine.

With the approximately six-minute firing of the spacecraft’s service module engine on Thursday, known as the translunar injection burn, Orion and its crew of NASA astronauts Reid Wiseman, Victor Glover, Christina Koch and CSA (Canadian Space Agency) astronaut Jeremy Hansen accelerated out of Earth’s orbit and began the trajectory toward Earth’s nearest neighbor.

“Today, for the first time since Apollo 17 in 1972, humans have left Earth’s orbit. Reid, Victor, Christina and Jeremy are now on a precise trajectory to the Moon. Orion is operating with a crew for the first time in space, and we are collecting critical data and learning from every step,” said Dr. Lori Glaze, acting associate administrator for the Exploration Systems Development Mission Directorate at NASA Headquarters in Washington. “Each step we take marks significant progress on the path forward for the Artemis program. Although we have eight days of intensive work ahead of us, this is a big moment and we are proud to share it with the world.”

NASA’s Space Launch System (SLS) rocket and Orion spacecraft lifted off from Launch Pad 39B at the agency’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida at 6:35 p.m. EDT on April 1, sending the four astronauts on a planned 10-day test flight around the Moon and back.

After reaching space, Orion deployed its four solar wings, allowing the spacecraft to receive energy from the Sun, while the crew and engineers on the ground immediately began transitioning the spacecraft from launch to flight operations to begin checking key systems.

About 49 minutes into the test flight, the SLS rocket’s upper stage fired to place Orion in an elliptical orbit around Earth. A second planned burn of the scene propelled Orion, which the crew named “Integrity,” into a high Earth orbit extending about 46,000 miles above Earth for about 24 hours of system checks. After the burn, Orion separated himself from the scene, flying freely on his own.

The crew then performed a manual piloting demonstration to test Orion’s maneuverability using the ICPS (intermediate cryogenic propulsion stage) as a docking target.

At the end of the demonstration, Orion performed an automated departure burn to safely move away from the ICPS, after which the stage performed its own disposal burn and re-entered Earth’s atmosphere over a remote region of the Pacific Ocean.

Before re-entry, four small CubeSats were deployed from the SLS rocket’s Orion stage adapter.

Other tasks completed so far include a transition to the Deep Space Network for communications, the crew acclimating to the space environment, completing their first rest periods, performing the first flywheel exercise, restoring the spacecraft toilet to normal operation, and configuring the spacecraft for the translunar injection burn.

During a lunar flyby scheduled for Monday, April 6, astronauts will take high-resolution photographs and provide their own observations of the lunar surface, including areas of the Moon’s far side never seen directly by humans. Although the far side of the Moon is only partially illuminated during the flyby, conditions are expected to create shadows that extend across the surface, enhancing relief and revealing depth, ridges, slopes and crater rims that are often difficult to detect under full illumination.

After a successful lunar flyby, the astronauts will return to Earth and land in the Pacific Ocean off the coast of San Diego.

As part of a golden age of innovation and exploration, NASA will send Artemis astronauts on increasingly challenging missions to further explore the Moon for scientific discovery, economic benefit, and to build on our foundation for the first crewed missions to Mars.

Follow the latest progress of the mission, including more images from the test flight, at:

https://www.nasa.gov/artemis-ii

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Cheryl Warner / Rachel Kraft
Headquarters, Washington
202-358-1600
cheryl.m.warner@nasa.gov / rachel.h.kraft@nasa.gov