Artemis II crew cleared to depart Earth orbit and head for the moon

NASA's Mission Management Team cleared the Orion spacecraft and its four-person Artemis II crew for a trans-lunar injection burn to leave Earth orbit; the burn was scheduled Thursday evening and will set the crew on a multi-day flight that loops behind the moon.

NASA's Artemis II mission was cleared Thursday for a critical engine firing to leave Earth orbit and travel toward the moon. The four-person crew launched Wednesday from Kennedy Space Center and spent their first day testing Orion's systems and adjusting the spacecraft's highly elliptical orbit. The flight is intended to test hardware, procedures and flight control techniques needed for future moon landings after decades without crewed lunar missions. Current status: - The Mission Management Team reviewed Orion's near-flawless performance and cleared the spacecraft and crew for the trans-lunar injection (TLI) burn. - The TLI burn was scheduled to begin at 7:49 p.m. EDT and last about five minutes and 51 seconds, using the service module engine to accelerate Orion to roughly 25,000 mph to escape Earth's gravity. - The crew consists of commander Reid Wiseman, Victor Glover, Christina Koch and Canadian astronaut Jeremy Hansen, and they launched from Kennedy Space Center on Wednesday. - The flight plan calls for a pass behind the lunar far side on Monday and a return to Earth late next week, with the mission expected to reach about 252,455 miles from Earth, a distance noted as exceeding a 1970 Apollo-era record. - The article reports that this test will inform future Artemis missions; it also says NASA Administrator Jared Isaacman announced plans for another Orion crew next year to rehearse docking with moon landers and mentioned a multi-year funding plan to increase lunar launch cadence. Summary: The mission aims to demonstrate that the Lockheed Martin-built Orion crew vehicle can safely carry astronauts to the moon and back while validating procedures for future landings. The immediate next step reported is the scheduled trans-lunar injection burn Thursday evening, followed by the planned lunar far-side pass Monday and a return to Earth late next week.