Artemis II crew cleared to depart Earth orbit, head for moon

NASA's mission management team cleared the Orion capsule and its three-man, one-woman crew for a critical rocket firing Thursday evening to break out of Earth orbit and head for the moon.

Launched from the Kennedy Space Center Wednesday, Artemis II commander Reid Wiseman, Victor Glover, Christina Koch and Canadian astronaut Jeremy Hansen spent their first "day" in space testing their Orion capsule's myriad systems.

They also tested the capsule's maneuverability and adjusted its highly elliptical orbit to line them up for a trajectory to the moon, one that will carry them around the lunar far side Monday and then back to Earth late next week.

A spectacular view of the crescent Earth was beamed down by cameras on the Artemis II Orion capsule early April 2, 2026, as the spacecraft orbited Earth in a highly elliptical orbit at altitudes up to 40,000 miles or more. The highly elliptical orbit helped line the craft up for a rocket firing later in the day to send the astronauts on a trajectory to the moon. / Credit: NASA

NASA's Mission Management Team met Thursday, and after reviewing the Orion's near-flawless performance, cleared the spacecraft and its crew for the critical trans-lunar injection, or TLI burn, a make-or-break milestone for the lunar fly around.

"Hey just to make it clear in the open here, we are go for TLI after the MMT concluded their deliberations a few minutes ago, and we're going to proceed down that path and get ready for the burn here," lead Flight Director Jeff Radigan radioed the crew.

Replied Hansen: "We love those words. And we're loving the view. We're falling back to Earth real fast and looking forward to accelerating back to the moon."

The shuttle-era Orbital Maneuvering System engine at the base of the Orion capsule's service module was scheduled to fire for five minutes and 51 seconds starting at 7:49 p.m. EDT as the spacecraft raced through the low point of its elliptical orbit.

The engine firing was timed to provide a slingshot-like boost to the Orion, speeding it up to some 25,000 mph, the velocity needed to break free of Earth's gravitational clasp for a four-day trek to the moon.

Wiseman and his crewmates are the first astronauts to fly aboard a Lockheed Martin-built Orion spacecraft and the first to head for the moon since the final Apollo mission in December 1972.

In the process, they're expected to travel farther from Earth than anyone before them, reaching a distance of some 252,455 miles as they fly behind the moon, beating a record set by the crew of Apollo 13 in 1970.

But the major goal of the flight, along with putting the Orion through its paces, is to test the planning, procedures and flight control techniques needed for managing upcoming moon landing missions after a half-century gap between the Artemis and Apollo programs.

The Artemis II flight is seen by NASA as a trailblazer, demonstrating the Orion crew ferry ship can safely carry astronauts to the moon and back on a regular basis while setting the stage for one, and possibly two, landings near the moon's south pole in 2028.

Amid planning for those flights, NASA Administrator Jared Isaacman says the agency will send up another Orion crew next year to rehearse rendezvous and docking procedures with moon landers being built by SpaceX and Blue Origin. That flight, Artemis III, will be carried out in low-Earth orbit.

Isaacman says NASA will spend $20 billion over the next seven years to speed up the launch rate to a moon landing every six months while building a base near the moon's south pole.

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