Overview
- NASA’s Space Launch System lifted off from Kennedy Space Center with the Orion spacecraft and four astronauts on a lunar flyby test mission.
- The crew will spend a day in a high Earth orbit to check life support and maneuvering, then arc past the Moon and finish with a Pacific splashdown near San Diego.
- Orion is powered and steered by ESA’s European Service Module, which provides electricity, propulsion, and thermal control using Dutch-built solar arrays from Airbus Netherlands.
- The team includes Christina Koch, Victor Glover, Reid Wiseman, and Canadian Jeremy Hansen, setting firsts for a woman, a Black astronaut, and a non‑American heading toward the Moon.
- The launch follows fixes for a liquid hydrogen leak and a helium pressurization fault found in ground tests, and the outcome will shape timelines for later Artemis landings and ongoing debates over how lunar resources are managed.