Overview
- Artemis II, which lifted off Wednesday at 6:35 p.m. in Florida, carried four astronauts into Earth orbit aboard Orion on the SLS rocket.
- Shortly after liftoff, NASA reported a brief loss of voice from Orion to Mission Control that was quickly fixed and is now under review.
- The crew will first check life support, navigation and manual controls in Earth orbit, then fly a figure‑eight past the Moon without landing before a planned Pacific splashdown.
- The trajectory covers about 2.3 million kilometers and reaches roughly 370,000 kilometers from Earth and about 7,500 kilometers beyond the Moon’s far side.
- Reid Wiseman, Victor Glover, Christina Koch and Canadian Jeremy Hansen form a crew that marks firsts for a woman, a non‑white U.S. astronaut and a Canadian on a NASA lunar mission, flying SLS on only its second launch with Europe’s service module and German radiation sensors supporting Orion.