Overview
- NASA’s Artemis II, which launched Wednesday from Florida, placed Orion and its four‑person crew into Earth orbit to begin system checks.
- Mission control said the next major step is a burn to head for the Moon on Thursday, followed by a distant flyby and a free‑return course to a Pacific splashdown.
- Engineers repaired a pre‑launch communication fault in the flight‑termination system, the safety gear that can destroy the rocket if it veers off course.
- Early in orbit, controllers reported a brief loss of voice contact and toilets not yet working, while a manual piloting exercise by Victor Glover performed as planned.
- The flight carries Americans Reid Wiseman, Christina Koch and Victor Glover and Canadian Jeremy Hansen, marking the first woman, the first Black astronaut and the first non‑American to travel to lunar distance in more than 50 years.