NASA’s Artemis II Mission Leaves Earth Orbit for Flight around Moon

Earth’s crescent is seen from a solar array camera on the Orion spacecraft on the first flight day of the Artemis II mission.

Credit: NASA

For the first time in more than 50 years, astronauts on a NASA mission are bound to fly around the Moon after successfully completing a key burn of Orion’s main engine.

With the approximately six-minute firing of the spacecraft’s service module engine on Thursday, known as the translunar injection burn, Orion and its crew of NASA astronauts Reid Wiseman...