Artemis II Crew Fires Translunar Burn, Headed to Moon for First Time Since 1972

Four astronauts are on their way to the moon.

At 7:49 p.m. EDT on Thursday, Orion's main engine ignited for exactly five minutes and 49 seconds, accelerating the spacecraft by 1,274 feet per second and pushing the crew to an escape velocity of approximately 24,500 miles per hour. The translunar injection burn, executed with up to 6,000 pounds of thrust, severed the spacecraft's gravitational bond to Earth. No crew had attempted that since Apollo 17 in December 1972.

"For the first time since 1972 during Apollo 17, human beings have left Earth orbit," said Dr. Lori Glaze, NASA's acting associate administrator for the Exploration Systems Development Mission Directorate, calling the burn "flawless" in a post-burn press briefing. "From this point forward, the laws of orbital mechanics are going to carry our crew to the moon, around the far side and back to Earth."

Aboard Orion are Commander Reid Wiseman, Pilot Victor Glover, Mission Specialist Christina Koch, and Canadian Space Agency Mission Specialist Jeremy Hansen. The crew carries a constellation of firsts: Glover is the first person of color to travel beyond low Earth orbit, Koch the first woman, and Hansen the first non-U.S. citizen. Hansen, radioing from Orion in the hours after the burn, described the crew as too captivated to leave the windows. "None of us can get to lunch because we're glued to the window. We're taking pictures," he said, calling the sight of Earth "phenomenal."

The burn capped roughly 24 hours of orbital operations that served as the mission's initial proving ground. After liftoff from Kennedy Space Center's Launch Complex 39B at 6:35 p.m. EDT on Wednesday, April 1, the Interim Cryogenic Propulsion Stage raised Orion to an orbit stretching from 1,500 to 46,000 miles altitude, approximately one-sixth the distance to the moon. Orion circled at 17,500 miles per hour, completing each egg-shaped loop in about 90 minutes, before the perigee raise burn positioned the spacecraft for TLI.

The mission follows a free-return trajectory, meaning lunar and Earth gravity together will arc the spacecraft around the far side of the moon and slingshot it home without requiring significant additional engine burns. The crew will reach the moon's vicinity around Monday, April 6, passing within 4,000 to 6,000 miles of the surface before swinging back toward Earth. The full mission runs approximately 10 days.

Artemis II will not land; its purpose mirrors Apollo 8 in 1968, validating the Orion capsule and Space Launch System under crewed conditions for the first time before a planned lunar landing as early as 2028. The trajectory may also shatter a record set under grim circumstances: Apollo 13, which aborted its 1970 landing after a catastrophic oxygen tank rupture, holds the farthest-from-Earth mark at 248,655 miles, a distance Artemis II's path may exceed.

Apollo 17 astronaut Harrison Schmitt, now 90 and the last person to walk on the lunar surface, offered the crew advice before launch. With the TLI burn behind them, what began as an engineering milestone now carries the weight of half a century of waiting.