NASA's Artemis II Crew Leaves Earth Orbit for Historic Moon Flyby After Successful Engine Burn

NASA's Artemis II mission reached a critical milestone on April 2 when the four-person crew aboard the Orion spacecraft completed the translunar injection burn and departed Earth orbit on a path toward the Moon.

Credit: NASA

The maneuver, which lasted five minutes and 50 seconds, committed the spacecraft to a free-return trajectory that will carry it around the Moon and back to Earth without requiring further major propulsion adjustments.

The burn occurred at 7:49 p.m. EDT, roughly 25 hours after the Space Launch System rocket lifted off from Launch Complex 39B at NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Florida on April 1 at 6:35 p.m. EDT.

At the time, Orion and its attached interim cryogenic propulsion stage had a combined mass of about 58,000 pounds. The spacecraft's main engine, providing up to 6,000 pounds of thrust, consumed roughly 1,000 pounds of fuel during the firing.

The crew consists of NASA astronauts Reid Wiseman, commander; Victor Glover, pilot; Christina Koch, mission specialist; and Canadian Space Agency astronaut Jeremy Hansen, mission specialist.

They are flying aboard the Orion spacecraft named Integrity on the first crewed lunar flyby since Apollo 17 in 1972. The approximately 10-day mission serves as a full-system test of the SLS rocket and Orion in deep space ahead of planned crewed lunar landings later this decade.

According to NASA's official Flight Day 2 update, mission managers polled "Go" for the burn after confirming the spacecraft systems were ready.

Ground teams had earlier completed a perigee raise maneuver to refine the initial Earth orbit and conducted proximity operations with the spent propulsion stage after separation.

Just after the burn, Hansen radioed mission control from orbit.

"With that successful TLI, the crew's feeling pretty good up here on our way to the moon, and we just wanted to communicate to everyone around the planet who's worked to make Artemis possible that we firmly felt the power of your perseverance during every second of that burn," he said. "Humanity has once again shown what we are capable of, and it's your hopes for the future that carry us now on this journey around the moon."

The crew spent the hours immediately following the burn exercising on Orion's compact flywheel device, which provides both aerobic and resistive workouts within the spacecraft's tight volume constraints.

They also checked out scientific payloads, including the AVATAR experiment, and participated in their first downlink with reporters on the ground.

A brief communications dropout shortly after reaching orbit was traced to a ground-side configuration issue with the Tracking and Data Relay Satellite system and resolved without affecting operations.

The mission will not land on the Moon. Instead, the crew will conduct observations of lunar surface features during a roughly six-hour window on April 6, including craters, ancient lava flows, and tectonic features.

They are also scheduled to view a solar eclipse from lunar distance and observe the Sun's corona. These activities will help refine targeting plans for future Artemis landings.

As of April 3, the crew remains in good health and the spacecraft continues to perform as expected on its outbound trajectory. The mission is scheduled to end with a Pacific Ocean splashdown around April 11.