Artemis II Astronauts Rocket Toward Moon After Spending Day Around Earth

NASA’s Artemis II astronauts fired up their engines and shot toward the moon Thursday night, breaking free of the shackles that have confined humanity to shallow orbits around Earth in the decades since Apollo.

The so-called Translunar firing occurred 25 hours after liftoff and put three Americans and a Canadian on a flight path around the Moon early next week. The Orion capsules launched from orbit around the Earth just in time and chased after the moon to a distance of approximately 400,000 km.

“Ladies and gentlemen, I am very, very excited to be able to say that for the first time since 1972, mankind left Earth orbit during Apollo 17,” NASA’s Lori Glaze announced at a press conference.

He stated that the engine’s ignition was perfect.

Canadian astronaut Jeremy Hansen said he and his crew were glued to the capsule’s windows as they watched the “remarkable” views as they separated from Earth in the rearview mirror. Their faces were stuck so tightly against the windows that they had to wipe them off.

“Humanity has once again shown what we are capable of, and it is your hopes for the future that carry us on this journey around the moon,” Hansen said.

NASA kept the Artemis II crew near home for a day to test their capsule’s life support systems before clearing them for departure to the Moon.

The Artemis II test flight, now headed for the moon, is the opening act of NASA’s grand plans for a lunar base and sustainable lunar life.

Commander Reid Wiseman, pilot Victor Glover, Christina Koch and Hansen will zip past the moon, then make a U-turn and head straight for home without stopping on land. In the process, they will become the furthest humans have ever traveled from Earth, breaking the distance record set by Apollo 13 in 1970. They may also be the fastest at re-entry at the end of their flight on April 10.

Glover, Koch and Hansen have already made history by becoming the first Black person, first woman and first non-U.S. citizen to set foot on the moon. All 24 of Apollo’s lunar rovers were white men.

To set the mood for the day’s main event, Mission Control woke the crew up with John Legend’s “Green Light” featuring Andre 3000 and the motley crew of NASA applauding them. “We’re ready to go,” Glover said.

Mission Control gave the final minutes before the critical engine ignited and told the astronauts that they were beginning “humanity’s lunar homecoming arc” to bring them back to Earth.

The capsule relies on the gravity of the Earth and the Moon to complete the figure-eight round-trip cycle, called a free-spinning lunar orbit. The engine accelerated their capsule to over 38,000 km/h to lift them out of Earth’s orbit.

“We are not leaving the Earth with this burn to the Moon. We choose it,” Koch said.

Flight director Judd Frieling said he and his crew do business while on duty, but when they get home they’ll probably realize the importance of it all. “I suspect everyone understands that this is a once-in-a-lifetime moment,” he told reporters.

The next major milestone will be Monday’s Moon flyby.

Orion will zoom to 6,400 km beyond the moon before returning, providing unprecedented and illuminated views of the far side of the moon, at least to the human eye. The cosmos will even give the Artemis II astronauts a total solar eclipse as the moon temporarily blocks the sun from their perspective.

Astronauts enjoyed views of Earth from tens of thousands of miles up as they waited to leave orbit early Thursday. Koch told Mission Control that they could see the entire coastlines of the continents and even their old haunt, the South Pole.

NASA is counting on the test flight to launch the entire Artemis program and land two astronauts on the moon in 2028.

However, the so-called Lunar toilet may need some design tweaks.

Orion’s toilet malfunctioned as soon as the Artemis crew reached orbit Wednesday evening. Mission Control guided astronaut Koch through some plumbing tricks, and he eventually got the job done, but not before having to resort to emergency urine storage bags.

Urinary bladders do double duty. Mission Control on Thursday ordered the crew to fill a group of empty bags with water from the capsule dispenser. A valve problem occurred in the dispenser after liftoff, and NASA requested that ample amounts of drinking water be available for the crew in case the problem reoccurred. Astronauts used straws and syringes to fill the bladders with more than two gallons’ worth before returning to the moon.