The four astronauts of the Artemis 2 spacecraft have ignited their spacecraft's engine to break free from Earth's orbit and accelerate towards the moon, a historic moment that commits NASA to its first crewed lunar flight in over half a century. The Orion capsule's engine propelled the astronauts on Thursday onto their trajectory towards the moon, which they will now traverse as part of the 10-day Artemis 2 mission.
"The crew is feeling quite good up here on our way to the moon," said astronaut Jeremy Hansen. "Humanity has once again shown what it is capable of."
"You can see the entire globe from pole to pole, you can see Africa, Europe, and if you look closely, the northern lights," Artemis II commander Reid Wiseman said in a live broadcast from space, describing the moment the crew saw Earth as a whole. "It was the most spectacular moment of our lives," he expressed, emphasizing that Earth looked magnificent from above.
The capsule with the four astronauts is expected to reach near the moon on April 6. In the coming days, the views outside their windows will become increasingly inspiring and beautiful: Earth shrinking into a small blue and white marble behind them and the Moon growing from a bright disk into a world of dense craters filling the frame. Around the sixth day of the mission, as Orion sails beyond the Moon, the astronauts are expected to witness a total solar eclipse from deep space. And, while NASA's Artemis II crew will not make a landing on the Moon themselves, their mission in the coming days will pave the way for future human steps on the Moon. During their journey, the four astronauts will fly (10,299 km) beyond the far side of the Moon, which is always turned away from Earth—marking the first time this has happened in human history. NASA says that during this period, the crew will "analyze and photograph geological features, such as craters and ancient lava flows," which will assist future missions in exploring the region of the Moon's South Pole.