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Summarised by Centrist
NASA’s Artemis II mission is no longer waiting to leave Earth orbit. It has already done it. The Space Launch System launched from Kennedy Space Center in Florida on April 1, carrying Reid Wiseman, Victor Glover, Christina Koch and Canadian astronaut Jeremy Hansen on the first crewed lunar flyby in more than 50 years.
On April 2, Orion completed its translunar injection burn and began the trip to the Moon on a mission expected to last about 10 days.
That makes Artemis II the first crewed flight of both NASA’s Space Launch System rocket and Orion spacecraft.
The agency says the mission is meant to test life support and other core systems with astronauts aboard before later Artemis flights push further towards a sustained return to the Moon and, eventually, Mars.
Editor’s note: For readers tempted to say the first Moon missions never happened, Hamish Carnachan’s 2003 Investigate article is a handy rabbit-hole killer. It lays out the standard sceptic claims about the waving flag, missing stars, strange shadows, crosshairs and Van Allen radiation.
Carnachan cites astronomy writer Phil Plait, who argues the flag moved because of inertia, the stars were not visible because the cameras were set for daylight exposure, the shadows only look odd because of perspective, and the radiation exposure was brief enough to be survivable.
Image: Reid Wiseman/NASA
