NASA Launches Astronauts on World’s 1st Crewed Lunar Mission in 50 Years

FLORIDA, USA – Four astronauts blasted off from Florida on Wednesday on NASA’s Artemis II mission, a high-stakes voyage around the moon that marks the United States’ boldest step yet toward returning humans to the lunar surface later this decade in a race with China.

NASA’s Space Launch System rocket, topped with its Orion crew capsule, is carrying its debut crew, three U.S. astronauts and a Canadian astronaut.

A NASA administrator said the launch was an opening act for subsequent missions that would include construction of a moon base to support the “enduring presence we’re trying to create on the surface.”

The mission is the debut crewed test flight in the Artemis program, and the world’s first to send astronauts in the vicinity of the moon, out of Earth’s orbit, in 53 years.