Overview
- NASA’s Space Launch System lifted off Wednesday at 6:35 p.m. EDT from Kennedy Space Center, beginning the first crewed trip beyond low Earth orbit since the Apollo era.
- Orion is now in high Earth orbit for roughly 24 hours of checkouts that include manual handling and tests of life support and communications, with an option to return early if needed.
- Mission teams plan a translunar injection burn about a day after launch to place the four astronauts on a free‑return course for a lunar flyby early next week that is expected to set a new distance record for human travel.
- Controllers cleared the countdown after fixing a flight‑termination system hardware issue, a faulty temperature reading on the launch abort system, and a brief telemetry glitch with the capsule.
- The rocket’s upper stage will release four international CubeSats for science and technology demos, and NASA targets an April 10 Pacific splashdown near San Diego with U.S. Navy recovery forces on standby.