Four astronauts lifted off from Florida Wednesday on NASA’s Artemis II mission, a high-stakes flight around the moon that marks the United States’ boldest step toward returning humans to the lunar surface this decade amid competition with China. The Space Launch System (SLS) rocket, topped by the Orion crew capsule, blasted off just before sunset from Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral, carrying three U.S. astronauts and one Canadian into Earth orbit. The 32-story vehicle climbed into clear skies trailing a towering column of vapor.
NASA Administrator Jared Isaacman described the launch as an opening act for later missions that aim to build a moon base and an “enduring presence” on the surface. If all goes to plan, crew members Reid Wiseman, Victor Glover, Christina Koch and Canadian Space Agency astronaut Jeremy Hansen will fly around the moon and back on a nearly 10-day expedition, testing the spacecraft while traveling farther into space than humans have gone before.
Artemis II is the first crewed test flight in NASA’s Artemis program, the successor to Apollo, and the first mission to send astronauts near the moon, beyond Earth orbit, in 53 years. It is a critical rehearsal for planned landings later this decade. NASA is targeting Artemis IV in 2028 for the first-ever landing at the moon’s South Pole, seeking to precede China’s planned crewed mission to the same region as early as 2030. The last moonwalk remains the U.S. Apollo program’s final mission in 1972.
After nearly three years of training, the crew represents the debut human flight of Artemis. Minutes before liftoff, Hansen, strapped inside the gumdrop-shaped Orion, told mission control: “This is Jeremy, we are going for all humanity.” Launch director Charlie Blackwell-Thompson sent the crew off with praise for the Artemis team, partners and a new generation, adding: “Good luck, godspeed, Artemis II. Let’s go.”
Hours after liftoff, the SLS upper stage separated from the Lockheed Martin-built Orion and its propulsion module. The crew began an early test: manually steering Orion around the upper stage to demonstrate contingency maneuverability if automated systems fail.
The launch is a milestone more than a decade in the making for SLS, validating principal contractors Boeing and Northrop Grumman and showing the system can safely carry humans. NASA has increasingly used newer, lower-cost rockets from commercial firms such as SpaceX for low-Earth orbit missions. Officials noted the mission as a positive development after recent workforce reductions attributed to federal downsizing.
President Donald Trump, speaking during a national address about the Iran war, called the astronauts “brave people” and wished them well.
Artemis II will send its crew about 252,000 miles (406,000 km) into space — the farthest humans have traveled; the previous record of roughly 248,000 miles was set by Apollo 13 in 1970. NASA’s uncrewed Artemis I flew a similar lunar loop in 2022. Artemis II will further test Orion and SLS, programs known for rising costs, estimated at $2–4 billion per launch. SpaceX and Blue Origin are developing lunar landers NASA may use. Artemis III had been planned as the first crewed landing, but Administrator Isaacman added an extra crewed test mission in February before committing to a surface landing.
