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The historic Artemis I mission lifted off in the early hours of Wednesday after months of anticipation. The landmark event began a journey that will send an unmanned spacecraft around the moon, paving the way for NASA to return astronauts to the lunar surface for the first time in half a century.
The towering 322-foot (98-meter) Space Launch System, or SLS, rocket fired its engines at 1:47 a.m. ET. It emitted up to 9 million pounds (4.1 million kg) of thrust to pull itself from the launch site in Florida and into the air, streaking briskly across the night sky.
Atop the rocket was the Orion spacecraft, a teardrop-shaped capsule that detached from the rocket after reaching space. Orion is designed to carry people, but its passengers for this test mission are of the inanimate variety, including some mannequins collecting vital data to aid future living crews.
The SLS rocket spent millions of pounds of fuel before parts of the rocket began to detach, and Orion is now soaring into orbit with just one big engine. This engine will fire two powerful burns over the next two hours to put the spacecraft on the correct trajectory towards the moon. Then, about two hours after liftoff, the rocket engine will also shut down and Orion will be left to fly freely for the rest of its journey.
Orion is expected to log about 1.3 million miles (2 million kilometers), following a path that will take it farther than any spacecraft designed for human flight has traveled, according to NASA. After orbiting the moon, Orion will make its return trip, completing its journey in about 25.5 days. The capsule is then scheduled to launch into the Pacific Ocean off the coast of San Diego on December 11, when recovery teams will be waiting nearby to bring it to safety.
Throughout the mission, NASA engineers will closely monitor the spacecraft’s performance. The team will assess whether Orion is performing as predicted and will be ready to support its first crewed mission to lunar orbit, currently scheduled for 2024.
This mission also marks the first flight of the SLS rocket as the most powerful ever to reach Earth orbit, with 15 percent more thrust than the Saturn V rocket that powered NASA’s moon landings in the 20th century.
And this mission is just the first in a long line of increasingly difficult Artemis missions as NASA works toward its goal of establishing a permanent outpost on the moon. Artemis II will follow a similar course to Artemis I, but will have astronauts on board. Artemis III, planned for later this decade, is expected to land a woman and a person of color on the lunar surface for the first time.
Read more: The sheer numbers that make the Artemis I mission a monumental feat
The mission team faced a series of setbacks before Wednesday morning’s launch, including technical problems with the mega Moon rocket and two typhoons that passed through the launch site.
Fueling the SLS rocket with supercooled liquid hydrogen proved to be a key issue that forced NASA to scrap previous liftoff attempts, but on Tuesday, the tanks were filled despite leaking problems that halted fueling hours before launch.
To address this problem, NASA has developed what it calls a “red crew”—a group of personnel specially trained to make repairs while the rocket is loaded with propellant. They tightened some nuts and bolts to stop the fuel leaks.
“The rocket, it’s alive, crackling, making venting noises — it’s very scary. So… my heart was pounding. My nerves were getting to me, but, yes, we showed up today. When we went up the stairs. We were ready to rock and roll,” Red crew member Trent Annis said in an interview on NASA TV after the launch.
Other NASA personnel in the launch site firing room, where agency officials make critical decisions in the hours and moments before liftoff, celebrated a victory.
“Well for once I can be speechless,” said Artemis I director Charlie Blackwell-Thompson, the first woman to take on such a role.
“I’ve talked a lot about appreciating the moment you’re in,” Blackwell-Thompson said in remarks to the engineers in the shooting room. “And we’ve worked hard as a team. You have worked hard as a team up to this point. This is your moment.”
Blackwell-Thompson said then that it was time for tie-cutting, a NASA tradition in which launch operators cut the ends of their business ties. Blackwell-Thompson was cut off by the shuttle’s launch manager, Mike Leinbach, and promised others in the room, “I’ll stay all night if I have to. It will be my pleasure to cut my ties.”
