NASA launches Artemis II, new moonshot era

What happened

The four astronauts of NASA’s Artemis II mission blasted off from Florida’s Kennedy Space Center shortly before sunset Wednesday, aiming to become the first humans to reach the moon in 54 years. The near-perfect launch sent NASA’s Reid Wiseman, Victor Glover and Christina Koch and Canadian astronaut Jeremy Hansen into Earth orbit, where Glover manually maneuvered their Orion crew capsule around the detached second stage of the SLS rocket, the first task on their historic 10-day journey into deep space.