EverythingScience

ICPS-2 has completed its first burn of the RL10C-2 main engine, placing the Orion spacecraft and Artemis II astronauts into their preliminary Earth orbit. They will coast in this orbit for the next hour before the apogee raise burn is planned.

Artemis II: Orion Integrity is now at an orbital altitude higher than Polaris Dawn achieved, so this is the furthest humans have been for decades.

Daytime SLS SRB separation was even more spectacular than I ever expected, simply magnificent.

Absolutely breathtaking view of the Artemis II launch. Wow.

In the words of Commander Reid Wiseman: FULL SEND IT!

Orion and its crew of four is in space, and in just a few days, should be in the moon's sphere of influence. I cannot believe what I saw with my own eyes. Emotional. Exciting. Ecstatic. I'm out of E words!

The 7 m-long solar arrays provide enough electricity to power two households. 🏠🏠

The wings can swivel and rotate to follow the Sun, like sunflowers do 🌻

Built in the Netherlands by Airbus Space, they will keep computers and experiments running.

🛰️ The Orion spacecraft spreads its wings.

☀️ The four solar arrays on the European Service Module unfolded like a concertina.

🔋 They are starting to collect photons from the Sun to turn them into electricity for the Moon trip.

We have liftoff! Go Artemis II!!

Go, Artemis II! 🌕

NASA’s Artemis II mission is sending astronauts around the Moon. On their ten-day journey, the team will switch between the Near Space Network and Deep Space Network to communicate with Mission Control.

Learn how our networks work together: go.nasa.gov/47zdZWg

Liftoff.

The Artemis II mission launched from NASAKennedy at 6:35pm ET (2235 UTC), propelling four astronauts on a journey around the Moon.

Artemis II will pave the way for future Moon landings, as well as the next giant leap — astronauts on Mars.