Historic Artemis II moon mission lifts off, amid US lunar race with China
he Nasa Artemis II SLS rocket launches at the Kennedy Space Centre on Wednesday.
Photo: AP Four astronauts lifted off on Wednesday for a trip around the moon, marking humankind’s deepest venture into space in an odyssey that aims to launch the US into a new era of interstellar exploration.
Carrying three Americans and one Canadian, a 32-story rocket rose from Nasa’s Kennedy Space Centre, where tens of thousands gathered to witness the dawn of this new era.
Crowds also jammed the surrounding roads and beaches, reminiscent of the Apollo moonshots in the 1960s and ’70s.
It is Nasa’s biggest step yet toward establishing a permanent lunar presence.
The mission dubbed Artemis II has been years in the making after facing repeated setbacks and massive cost overruns.
Anxiety briefly spiked when less than two hours before the launch window was to open, Nasa said engineers identified a technical issue related to the rocket’s flight termination system, a key safety mechanism.
But cheers rang out among spectators gathered around a live broadcast when a US space agency official said the problem was resolved. (From left) Mission specialist Jeremy Hansen, pilot Victor Glover, commander Reid Wiseman and mission specialist Christina Koch prepare for the Artemis II launch in Cape Canaveral, Florida, on Wednesday.
Photo: AFP The team featuring Americans Reid Wiseman, Victor Glover and Christina Koch along with Canadian Jeremy Hansen is on a roughly 10-day mission to hurtle around Earth’s nearest celestial neighbour without landing – much like Apollo 8 did in 1968.
The journey marks a series of historic accomplishments: it sends the first person of colour, the first woman and the first non-American on a lunar mission.
If the mission proceeds as planned, the astronauts will set a record by venturing farther from Earth than any human before.
It is also the inaugural crewed flight of Nasa’s new lunar rocket, dubbed SLS.
The mammoth orange-and-white rocket is designed to allow the United States to repeatedly return to the moon, with the goal of establishing a permanent base that will offer a platform for further exploration. “It’s a stepping stone to Mars, where we might have the most likelihood of finding evidence of past life, but it’s also a Rosetta Stone for how other solar systems form,” Koch told reporters on the weekend.
Under bright Florida sunshine, four giant tanks on the rocket started filling with liquid hydrogen and oxygen at 8.35am.
A full load of fuel
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