It has happened.
At 4:04 am IST on Thursday, April 2, a 32-storey rocket lit up the sky and carried four astronauts toward the Moon, marking the first time human beings have ventured that far from Earth since December 1972.
Nasa’s Artemis-II mission has lifted off from Kennedy Space Center in Florida, US, and the world is watching history in the making.
WATCH NASA ARTEMIS-II MOON MISSION LAUNCH
WHO IS GOING TO MOON?
The 10-day mission carries Nasa astronauts Reid Wiseman, Victor Glover, and Christina Koch, along with Canadian Space Agency (CSA) astronaut Jeremy Hansen, on a path around the Moon and back to Earth.
The crew will not land on the lunar surface as this flight is a test run, designed to put Nasa’s new spacecraft, Orion, and its giant rocket, the Space Launch System (SLS), through their paces with a crew aboard for the first time.
The mission breaks records before it even reaches the Moon.
Glover becomes the first person of colour, Koch the first woman, and Hansen the first non-US citizen to travel beyond low Earth orbit.
The mission builds directly on Artemis-I, an uncrewed test flight that circled the Moon in 2022.
WHAT HAPPENS NEXT?
The crew will spend the first couple of days in a high orbit around Earth, testing Orion’s life support systems and practising spacecraft manoeuvres. Then they head for the Moon.
The lunar flyby is expected on April 6 at around 9:30 pm IST, when the spacecraft will swing around the far side of the Moon, coming within roughly 7,600 km of the surface.
For about 30 to 50 minutes, the crew will lose contact with Earth entirely as they pass behind the Moon.
On flight day six, Orion will sail around 8,000 km beyond the Moon, surpassing Apollo 13’s distance record and making the Artemis-II crew the most remote human travellers in history.
The capsule will then spend the next several days journeying back to Earth, splashing down in the Pacific Ocean off the coast of San Diego on April 11 at approximately 1:36 am IST.
The mission is designed as a step toward a crewed Moon landing planned for 2028. For now, though, four humans are hurtling toward the Moon, and the global space race is on.
