Historic Artemis II lifts off in emotional launch to the Moon; historic day for space travel
Artemis II blasted off from the Kennedy Space Center Wednesday evening to begin its journey around the moon. The crew includes Canadian astronaut Jeremy Hansen – one of four astronauts pursuing the first lunar voyage in more than half a century.
Crowds packed roads and beaches, similar of the Apollo moonshots in the 1960s and ’70s.
“It’s a great day for us. It’s a great day for this team,” said Commander Reid Wiseman.
They are now embarked on a journey taking them farther from Earth than ever before.
The four will fly around the moon without stopping or even orbiting – then head straight back for a Pacific splashdown. They will set a new distance record for the farthest humans have traveled from Earth.
Astronauts last flew to the moon during Apollo 17 in 1972.
The 10-day mission is a project that’s been in the works for more than a decade, including research conducted right here in this province, with contributions that could pave the future for human-kind.
The journey has a direct connection to this province. Hansen and other NASA scientists took in the important geography of Labrador’s crater formed lake and have long boasted the unique landscapes here as world class. That’s something Dr. Hilding Neilson of Memorial University knows well. He and his colleagues and students will be watching closely.
About Artemis II
The 10-day mission is currently carrying NASA astronauts Reid Wiseman, Victor Glover, and Christina Koch, along with Canadian Space Agency astronaut Jeremy Hansen, on a free-return trajectory around the Moon and back to Earth. It is the second flight of the Space Launch System (SLS), the first crewed mission of the Orion spacecraft, and the first crewed mission beyond low Earth orbit since Apollo 17 in 1972.
The mission is expected to set several human spaceflight records. Glover would become the first person of color, Koch the first woman, and Wiseman the oldest person to leave low Earth orbit. Hansen would become the first non-U.S. citizen to travel beyond low Earth orbit and to the Moon’s vicinity. At a distance of approximately 4,700 miles (7,600 km; 4,100 nmi) beyond the Moon and an atmospheric reentry speed of about 25,000 miles per hour (40,000 km/h), the mission would exceed previous crewed flight distance and reentry speed.
Artemis II is a flight test supporting subsequent Artemis missions, which are planned to return humans to the lunar surface in 2028 for the first time since the Apollo program. The mission was originally designated Exploration Mission-2 (EM-2) and was initially intended to support the now-canceled Asteroid Redirect Mission, proposed in 2013. Its objectives were revised following the establishment of the Artemis program in 2017. The mission objectives are similar to those of Apollo 8 in 1968, the first crewed flight around the Moon during the Apollo program. However, its planned free-return trajectory more closely resembles that flown by Apollo 13.
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