KENNEDY SPACE CENTER, FL – A beautiful and extremely loud and bright late afternoon April 1 blastoff on NASA’s Space Launch System (SLS) and Orion Moon rocket propelled the Artemis II astronaut quartet on NASA’s history making journey hurling the first humans to the Moon and back in more than 50 years – since NASA’s Apollo era.
The successful Artemis II launch paves the way for NASA to proceed with the agency’s ambitions future goals to land humans on the Moon as soon as 2028 and an eventual moon base
The international crew of three American and one Canadian astronauts lifted off atop NASA’s SLS (Space Launch System) rocket generating 8.8 million pounds of ear-splitting, extremely bright and roaring thrust from Launch Pad 39B at the agency’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida at 6:35 p.m. EDT Wednesday, April 1, sending four astronauts aboard the Orion spacecraft on a planned 10 day test flight and lunar flyby looping around the Moon and back – on a free return trajectory.
The astronauts on NASA’s Artemis II Moonshot mission are now in flight, embarking on the first piloted lunar flyby of the Artemis program
Artemis II also counts as the first lunar mission in over half a century since NASA’s Apollo 17 human lunar landing mission in Dec. 1972
This crew will not land on the Moon or even orbit the moon.
Rather, its an ambitious test flight fully testing out the Orion spacecrafts life support systems for the first time – to make sure its ready for future ever more ambitious missions with astronauts.
There was virtually no life support on Artemis I. Over 90% of the life support systems are new, Lockheed told Space UpClose
“Today’s launch marks a defining moment for our nation and for all who believe in exploration. Artemis II … returns humanity to the Moon for the first time in more than 50 years and opening the next chapter of lunar exploration beyond Apollo. Aboard Orion are four remarkable explorers preparing for the first crewed flight of this rocket and spacecraft, a true test mission that will carry them farther and faster than any humans in a generation,” said NASA Administrator Jared Isaacman.
“Artemis II is the start of something bigger than any one mission. It marks our return to the Moon, not just to visit, but to eventually stay on our Moon Base, and lays the foundation for the next giant leaps ahead.”
The successful launch is the beginning of an approximately 10-day mission for NASA astronauts Reid Wiseman, Victor Glover, Christina Koch, and CSA (Canadian Space Agency) astronaut Jeremy Hansen.
All three NASA astronauts have flown long duration expeditions to the ISS (International Space Station). Hansen is the crews lone rookie
NASAs mammoth 32-story-tall SLS moon rocket is the worlds most powerful currently operational rocket.
“As the first crewed mission of NASA’s Artemis program, among its objectives, the flight will demonstrate life support systems for the first time with crew and lay the foundation for an enduring presence on the Moon ahead of future missions to Mars.”
Overall the Artemis II crew will travel over 690,000 miles in a loop around the Moon and back – venturing farther out from Earth than any human before in history! Farther even then the current record holders – namely the three-man crew of Apollo 13 back in 1970
Furthermore they will see lunar terrain on the lunar far side never seen by any humans
They will fly by the Moon at an altitude of about 4100 miles – thus the Moon will appear to be the size of a basketball held at arms length and enable a wider view of the lunar terrain compared to NASA’s Apollo astronauts.
Apollo orbital missions flew roughly 100 miles altitude above the lunar surface.
They will reach a maximum distance of about 252,000 miles from Earth – some 4000 miles further out than Apollo 13 – during their slingshot around the Moon
NASA hopes to follow up with a human lunar landing near the lunar south pole in 2028 if the lunar landers are ready and plans to start establishing a Moon base soon thereafter – if the funding materializes and things go well.
Enjoy our photos taken by Ken Kremer and Jean Wright for Space UpClose
Personally I’ve waited over 50 years for Americas human return to the moon having watched all the Apollo missions and remembering watching Neil and Buzz landing on the the Moon on July 20, 1969
Mammoth crowds estimated by officials at over 400,000 cheering and palpably excited tourists and spectators gathered from around the world in local parks and beaches for the chance to watch history in action as NASA’s mammoth SLS Orion moonshot rocket thundered off pad 39B into mostly clear skies on an easterly trajectory – carrying humans to the Moon and farther into space than ever before – and for the first time in more than half a century!!
The rocket rapidly arced over eastwards over the Atlantic Ocean towards Africa as it accelerated to its initial Earth orbit target – to the glee of hundreds of thousands locally and billions around the world
SLS broke through the sound barrier 55 seconds after liftoff – atop a massive exhaust plume spewing from the first stage engines generating a combined 8.8 million pounds of thrust from the twin 5 segment solid fueled SRBs and four liquid fueled RS-25 engines, during the climb to orbit
The SRBs burn for about two minutes generating 7.2 million pounds of thrust before being jettisoned – providing 80% of the first stage SLS thrust and the massive exhaust plume seen by spectators.
NASA reports that “after reaching space, Orion deployed its 4 solar array wings, enabling the spacecraft to receive energy from the Sun, while the crew and engineers on the ground immediately began transitioning the spacecraft from launch to flight operations to start checking out key systems.
“Artemis II is a test flight, and the test has just begun. The team that built this vehicle, repaired it, and prepared it for flight has given our crew the machine they need to go prove what it can do,” said NASA Associate Administrator Amit Kshatriya.
“Over the next 10 days, Reid, Victor, Christina, and Jeremy will put Orion through its paces so the crews who follow them can go to the Moon’s surface with confidence. We are one mission into a long campaign, and the work ahead of us is greater than the work behind us.”
After the core stage and twin first stage SRBs completed their powerful and critical do or die roles attention turned to the ULA-built ICPS upper stage – which was fired up on the first of two burns – named the Perigee Raise Burn Maneuver and the Apogee Raise Burn
At that moment the apogee was about 1380 miles and the perigee was only about 18 miles
About 49 minutes into the test flight, the SLS rocket’s ICPS upper stage fired for the first time (Perigee Raise Burn Maneuver) to put Orion into an elliptical orbit around Earth raising the perigee to a much safer 115 miles.
“A second planned burn by the stage will propel Orion, which the crew named “Integrity,” into a high Earth orbit extending about 46,000 miles beyond Earth,” NASA confirmed.
After the second burn, Orion will separate from the ICPS stage, flying free on its own.
NASA confirmed that the Apogee Raise Burn was also successfully completed on time at 1 hour 47 minutes elapsed time – by 9 p.m. April 1 – and achieving the high earth orbit extending to 46,000 miles altitude
Next up the four scientific cubesats will be deployed from a ring on the upper stage assembly
“In several hours, a ring on the rocket’s upper stage, which will be a safe distance away from the spacecraft, will deploy four CubeSats – small satellites from Argentina’s Comisión Nacional de Actividades Espaciales, Germany Space Agency, Korea AeroSpace Administration, and Saudi Space Agency – to perform scientific investigations and technology demonstrations.”
The spacecraft will remain in highly elliptical high Earth orbit for about a day, where the crew will conduct a manual pilot demonstration (proximity operations or prox ops) to test Orion’s handling capabilities for this and future ever more challenging missions – by flying around the ICPS upper stage for about 70 minutes.
The astronauts, with Mission Control Center teams at NASA’s Johnson Space Center in Houston, will continue checking spacecraft systems.
If all systems remain healthy, mission controllers will give Orion’s European-built service module a command to conduct the translunar injection burn (TLI) on Thursday, April 2. This move is an approximately six-minute firing to send the spacecraft on a trajectory that will simultaneously carry crew around the Moon, while also harnessing lunar gravity to slingshot them back to Earth.
The TLI burn also serves as the reentry burn on the final day for reentry into Earth atmosphere and splashdown into the Pacific Ocean off the coast of San Diego.
The crew will only need to fine tune the reentry path with small course correction burns – if needed.
During a planned roughly 9-hour lunar flyby on Monday, April 6, the astronauts will take photographs and provide observations of the Moon’s surface as the first people to lay eyes on some areas of the far side.
Although the lunar far side will only be partially illuminated during the flyby, the conditions should create shadows that stretch across the surface, enhancing relief and revealing depth, ridges, slopes and crater rims that are often difficult to detect under full illumination.
NASAs lunar science team has created a very detailed program of about 3 dozen targets for the astronauts to focus on, observe and photograph on the far side of the Moon.
Mare Orientale Basin will be one of the top science targets. It is only visible in full from the Moons far side and is the youngest impact crater – about 3.8 billion years old.
Crew observations and other human health scientific investigations during the mission, such as AVATAR, will inform science during future Moon missions.
Following a successful lunar flyby, the astronauts will return to Earth and splash down in the Pacific Ocean.
“As part of Golden Age of innovation and exploration, NASA will send Artemis astronauts on increasingly difficult missions to explore more of the Moon for scientific discovery, economic benefits, and to build on our foundation for the first crewed missions to Mars,” says NASA.
SLS & Orion Component Details:
The core stage of the SLS rocket stands at 212 feet (almost 65 meters) and consists of a 196,000-gallon liquid oxygen tank and a 537,000-gallon liquid hydrogen tank.
It also includes an intertank section that joins the two fuel reservoirs, a forward skirt that connects to the upper stage, and an engine section at the bottom with four RS-25 engines recycled and upgraded from NASA’s space shuttle, which together produce 2.2 million pounds of thrust.
The core stage is manufactured by Boeing at NASA’s Michoud Assembly Facility in New Orleans, Louisiana, and uses components made by suppliers in more than 38 states.
“The core stage demonstrated several important operations, including the pre-launch fueling of both tanks, actuating the hydraulic system, igniting the engines, running thrust vector control programs in flight, depleting the fuel tanks, shutting down the engines, and conducting successful separation and disposal maneuvers,” declared Boeing after the successful launch.
New Core stages for the Artemis III to V missions are already in production
The European Space Agency (ESA) is also heavily involved
ESA’s European Service Module built in Bremen, Germany, provides power, propellent, air, water and more and propels and sustains the Orion spacecraft and its crew on their journey around the Moon and safely back to Earth.
ESM is equipped with 33 engines and a main engine recycled from the space shuttle that guide, steer and propel the crew safely towards the Moon and back.
Likewise, ESM’s are already in production for future Artemis missions
ESM is equipped with four solar array wing extends which extend outward, giving Orion, a wingspan of roughly 63 feet when fully deployed. Each wing has 15,000 solar cells to convert sunlight to electricity. The arrays can turn on two axes that allow them to rotate and track the Sun, maximizing power generation as the spacecraft changes attitude during its time in Earth orbit and on its outbound journey to the Moon.
Ken Kremer Recent TV Interviews
Apr 1 Fox 35 Orlando
Watch my complete live prelaunch interview here:
https://www.fox35orlando.com/video/fmc-ssc0eojmgl3bpz7f
https://www.yahoo.com/news/videos/countdown-artemis-ii-launch-rocket-163524130.html
Dr. Ken Kremer from Space UpClose spoke with FOX 35’s Garrett Wymer about the previous hydrogen leaks regarding Artemis II [on April 1, 2026 just hours before the planned launch]. Kremer reported that NASA is testing the hardware and software ahead of the launch set for 6:30 p.m., April 1. “That’s all fixed now. Everything is looking really great,” Kremer said. Credit: Fox 35 Orlando/Ken Kremer/SpaceUpClose.com. Video: https://www.fox35orlando.com/video/fmc-ssc0eojmgl3bpz7f
Dr. Ken Kremer from Space UpClose spoke with FOX 35’s Garrett Wymer about the previous hydrogen leaks regarding Artemis II [on April 1, 2026 just hours before the planned launch]. Kremer reported that NASA is testing the hardware and software ahead of the launch set for 6:30 p.m., April 1. “That’s all fixed now. Everything is looking really great,” Kremer said. Credit: Fox 35 Orlando/Ken Kremer/SpaceUpClose.com
Apr 1 MS NOW: Prelaunch day of launch interview
Apr 1 Sky News England: Prelaunch live day of launch interview
Mar 25/26 WESH 2 NBC News Orlando: Watch my comments about NASAs new Moonbase plans at the lunar South Pole. Whats up with new NASA Artemis 2,3,4 missions timeline. Whats the future of commercial LEO space stations after ISS ends. Big Problem! – lack of money !
story/video: https://www.wesh.com/article/nasa-shifts-focus-to-moon-missions-iss-retirement-looms/70848583
Fox 35 Orlando: How, why and whats up with new NASA Artemis 2,3,4 mission planning timelines and goals in the meantime.
Watch my complete live interview
https://www.fox35orlando.com/video/fmc-3f8esf3r7ac76uzx
Caption: NASA has unveiled a timeline to get astronauts up on the moon once again. This time: $20 billion are being invested into a moon base project that would see astronauts up for a specific period of time, happening in the near future. FOX35 News+ Anchor Garrett Wymer spoke with Ken Kremer, Managing Editor for Space Upclose about this and the future of space travel.
Fox 35 Complete live interview video:
https://www.fox35orlando.com/video/fmc-vihrm1hbp25zq1hj
https://www.yahoo.com/news/videos/could-nasas-artemis-2-rollout-160318868.html
Wesh 2 NBC Orlando Mar 25:
https://www.wesh.com/article/nasa-shifts-focus-to-moon-missions-iss-retirement-looms/70848583
x
More Artemis II and launch photos from Ken Kremer and Jean Wright
x
