Artemis II launches astronauts around the moon in first deep space mission since Apollo

The Artemis II crew launched into the history books Wednesday, blasting off aboard NASA’s Orion spacecraft on a mission around the moon — the first crewed journey beyond low-Earth orbit in more than 50 years.

Astronauts Reid Wiseman, Victor Glover and Christina Koch of the U.S., and Jeremy Hansen of the Canadian Space Agency, boarded the 322-foot Orion spacecraft at Kennedy Space Center’s Launch Complex 39B on Wednesday afternoon, just hours before launching at 6:35 p.m.

The Artemis II crew is expected to travel around the moon and back, marking the first crewed mission beyond low Earth orbit since 1972.

Although the mission will not land on the lunar surface, it is designed to carry the four-person crew farther from Earth than any crewed mission since the Apollo era.

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