Artemis II mission leaves Earth orbit for flight around the Moon.

After a roughly six-minute translunar injection burn, Orion and its four-person crew departed Earth orbit and are on a planned trajectory for a lunar flyby and return to Earth.

Orion and its four-person crew departed Earth orbit after a roughly six-minute translunar injection burn of the spacecraft's service module engine. The crew includes NASA astronauts Reid Wiseman, Victor Glover, Christina Koch, and Canadian Space Agency astronaut Jeremy Hansen. The spacecraft lifted off on April 1 from Launch Pad 39B at Kennedy Space Center aboard the Space Launch System rocket for a planned 10-day test flight around the Moon and back. This is the first time since Apollo 17 in 1972 that humans have left Earth orbit on a NASA mission. Key facts: - The translunar injection burn accelerated Orion onto an outbound trajectory toward the Moon after the crew completed initial system checkouts. - The crew named the Orion spacecraft "Integrity," and it deployed four solar array wings after reaching space. - Orion entered a high Earth orbit extending about 46,000 miles for roughly 24 hours of system checkouts before separating from the ICPS upper stage. - The crew conducted a manual piloting demonstration using the ICPS as a docking target; Orion then executed an automated departure burn and the ICPS performed a disposal burn and re-entered over a remote Pacific region. - A planned lunar flyby on April 6 will include high-resolution photographs and crew observations of the lunar surface, including areas of the far side, and the mission is scheduled to conclude with a Pacific Ocean splashdown off the coast of San Diego. Summary: The successful translunar injection burn places Orion and its crew on a precise trajectory for a planned lunar flyby on April 6, which will include high-resolution photography of both near and far side features. After the flyby, the spacecraft is scheduled to return to Earth for a Pacific Ocean splashdown off San Diego, concluding the roughly 10-day test flight.