As the countdown clock rolled to zero on Wednesday evening, the engines of the 322-foot-tall, 5.75-million-pound Space Launch System rocket rumbled to life, plumes of steam and smoke fanning out across Launchpad 39B at Kennedy Space Center in Florida.
And then, the rocket’s eight million pounds of thrust went to work, lifting itself, and the Orion spacecraft perched at its top, off the ground and sending the four-astronaut crew — comprised of Reid Wiseman, commander, Victor Glover, pilot, Christina Koch, mission specialist, and Jeremy Hansen, mission specialist — aloft and into the pages of history.
That’s right, after more than half a century of just looking at the moon, on Wednesday NASA astronauts (and one Canadian, Hansen) sent a rocket to finally go back (at least to lunar orbit) in the federal space agency’s first lunar mission since Apollo 17 in 1972.
It all went off without a hitch.
In the final checks before issuing go for launch, the astronauts listed their reasons for being a part of this mission as they confirmed they were go for launch.
“We are going for our families,” Glover said.
“We are going for our teammates,” Koch said.
“We are going for all humanity,” Hansen said.
“Reid, Victor, Christina and Jeremy, on this historic mission, you take with you the heart of this Artemis team, the daring spirit of the American people and our partners across the globe, and the hopes and dreams of this generation,” Charlie Blackwell-Thomas, NASA’s Artemis II director, responded. “Good luck. Godspeed Artemis II. Let’s go.”
As the rocket vaulted through the clear blue sky, Johnson Space Center’s Mission Control in Houston took over operations and the SLS rocket began the separation phase, with its two solid boosters peeling off to drop into the Atlantic as the core stage of the SLS prepared to separate from the crew capsule, doing so right on time. Orion had reached Earth’s orbit within three minutes of launch (as planned) and Orion was fully separated from the SLS rocket roughly eight minutes in, leading us into the next stage of the mission which will be playing out over the next 24 hours.
“We have a beautiful moonrise and we’re heading right at it,” Wiseman said as the Orion capsule, dubbed Integrity by its crew, ascended atop the most powerful rocket NASA has ever created.
All of this came off over the course of a remarkably smooth prelaunch countdown. While the previous launch attempt in February ended up being scratched due to hydrogen leaks during its wet launch dress rehearsal, there was nothing like that in the lead-up to Wednesday’s launch.
Less than an hour before the final countdown, there was a brief flurry of concern when NASA officials noted a possible battery issue, but within five minutes the issue was reported resolved. Even the weather seemed to be cooperating. Although there had been some rain in the hours before the launch, the weather actually improved by the time the astronauts were loaded into Orion and the launchpad was cleared with a 93 percent chance of acceptable weather conditions, up from 80 percent predicted on Tuesday.
And then they went up, in an arc of orange, yellow and white flames that gradually turned into one burning speck of silver streaking ever higher into space.
Now that the crewed spacecraft is perched in Earth’s high orbit, the spacecraft will be hanging out there until at least Thursday. After the Orion has spent a day going through final system checks while in Earth’s high orbit it will embark on the next leg of the journey, which will see the four-person crew traveling about 250,000 miles away from Earth (surpassing Apollo 13’s record of 248,655 miles), reaching lunar orbit by April 6. From this point, the crew will loop around the moon, hovering between 4,500 to 6,000 miles above it, allowing astronauts to observe and analyze the far side of the moon and whatever else they can see from their perch.
Then they’ll begin the trip home, a journey that will be prompted as the module falls into the pull of Earth’s gravity. On April 10, the Orion will enter our atmosphere going about 25,000 mph, with parachutes deploying to slow it to about 20 mph by the time it splashes down in the Pacific Ocean.
Once Artemis II is concluded, NASA will be moving on to the next mission, Artemis III. The plan is to send Artemis III up next year where it is slated to practice docking with lunar modules currently being designed by SpaceX and Blue Origin respectively. After that, NASA officials plan on having boots on the lunar ground with Artemis IV or Artemis V.
NASA Administrator Jason Isaacman noted Artemis II is also a stepping stone to even greater things, telling CBS News in the hours before the launch that this is mission is crucial for getting us closer to Mars: “You’re doing it for the scientific potential, economic potential and as a technological proving ground to do the things on the moon that you are going to need on Mars.”
But no matter where all of this leads, by the time these four astronauts return home on April 10, they’ll have been farther from the planet than humans have ever gone. Even though they won’t be landing on the moon, they’ll have seen a part of the lunar surface that no human has ever laid eyes on.
