Artemis II marks new era as astronauts head for lunar flyby

For the first time since Apollo 17 in 1972, a crewed Nasa spacecraft has left Earth's orbit and is now travelling towards the Moon.

Four astronauts — Nasa's Reid Wiseman, Victor Glover, and Christina Koch, along with Canadian Space Agency astronaut Jeremy Hansen — are aboard the Orion spacecraft, which they have named "Integrity."

On Thursday, Orion's service module engine fired for roughly six minutes in what Nasa calls the translunar injection burn. That burn accelerated the spacecraft beyond Earth's gravitational pull and set it on course for the Moon.

The mission began on 1 April, when Nasa's Space Launch System rocket lifted off from Kennedy Space Center in Florida at 6:35 pm EDT.

Shortly after launch, Orion deployed its four solar array wings to draw power from the Sun. Engineers on the ground and the crew began checking key systems almost immediately.

Before breaking free of Earth's orbit, Orion spent about 24 hours in a high Earth orbit extending roughly 46,000 miles above the planet. During that period, the crew completed a manual piloting demonstration, using the rocket's upper stage as a target.

They also exercised, rested, and restored the spacecraft's toilet to normal operations which malfunctioned for a while.

A lunar flyby is planned for Monday, 6 April. The astronauts will photograph the lunar surface in high resolution, including parts of the far side never directly observed by human eyes.

The lighting conditions during the flyby are expected to cast long shadows, bringing out craters, ridges, and slopes in striking detail.

After the flyby, the crew will return to Earth and splash down in the Pacific Ocean near San Diego. The entire mission is expected to last 10 days.

Nasa describes Artemis II as a stepping stone. The agency intends to follow it with increasingly ambitious crewed missions, with eventual human flights to Mars firmly on the horizon.