Apr 01, 2026 — About two hours after liftoff from Kennedy Space Center, the Artemis II crew reached high Earth orbit, NASA reported. The astronauts will spend roughly 24 hours running systems checks on the Orion spacecraft before a planned translunar injection burn on Thursday, provided all tests remain nominal.
NASA characterized the spacecraft’s current path as extending roughly 46,000 miles beyond Earth. Orion’s solar arrays have fully deployed and are supplying power as the vehicle continues its outbound trajectory toward the moon.
The mission launched Wednesday evening, beginning an approximately 685,000-mile, 10-day voyage. Orion is set to loop the crew around the moon, carrying humans farther into deep space than any previous crewed mission. Photographs from the launch show the Space Launch System rocket and Orion ascending from Cape Canaveral.
NASA Administrator Jared Isaacman called Artemis II America’s “grand return to the moon,” and said astronauts Reid Wiseman, Victor Glover Jr., Christina Koch and Canadian Space Agency astronaut Jeremy Hansen “are safe. They’re secure, and they’re in great spirits.” He said officials will continue providing public updates and will wait to celebrate until the crew is under parachutes and splashes down off the West Coast.
Isaacman also noted a temporary communications outage about 51 minutes into the flight during a planned satellite handover. Ground teams were briefly unable to receive data from the spacecraft and crew, but communications have since been restored.
— ABC News’ Briana Alvarado