In a historic, crewed test flight, NASA launched the Artemis II mission Wednesday evening at 6:35 p.m. ET from Kennedy Space Center, sending four astronauts aboard the Orion spacecraft—nicknamed Integrity—on a planned mission bound for lunar vicinity.
The Space Launch System (SLS) core stage and RS-25 main engines produced a monumental liftoff, with sound-suppression water systems active and a visible wall of power felt by observers near the pad. Within the first minute, flight commentary noted steady performance: at roughly 30 seconds Integrity was several miles up, accelerating rapidly; by the supersonic pass near 90 seconds the vehicle had exceeded 2,600 mph. Controllers reported guidance convergence, main-engine throttle maneuvers and routine separation events—solid rocket booster burnout and jettison near two minutes, followed by continued core-stage burn to reach a preliminary orbit.
Telemetry and on-board cameras showed planned staging and hardware events, including jettisoned panels on the service module and readiness of upper-stage attitude-control thrusters. Flight controllers in Houston confirmed nominal systems performance and the “three-engine press” contingency margin—meaning the mission could continue even with a single main-engine loss by burning the remaining engines longer.
Mission elapsed milestones and orbit insertion were paced precisely. Orion and its interim upper stage were expected to settle into an elliptical orbit before further maneuvers, with the spacecraft’s high point (apogee) some distance above low Earth orbit planned as part of the trajectory that will lead to the lunar flyby phase later in the mission profile.
Onboard, astronauts reported sights from the capsule—Reid Wiseman called a “beautiful moonrise” visible from their vantage as they climbed above the horizon, a reminder of the mission’s larger goal: human return operations beyond low Earth orbit. Ground commentators compared the SLS/Orion liftoff experience to the Space Shuttle era—a different, even more powerful impulse with correspondingly deep acoustic and atmospheric effects.
Artemis II is the first Artemis mission to carry a crew; the flight will exercise Orion systems and operations with four astronauts on board and set the stage for later Artemis missions intended to return humans to the lunar surface. As the vehicle reached its initial orbit and controllers took over routine tracking, mission teams began the sequence of checks and planned burns that will govern Orion’s path out toward the Moon.