NASA’s Artemis II mission has completed its translunar injection burn, an approximately six-minute firing of Orion’s service module main engine that accelerated the spacecraft and crew out of Earth orbit and onto an outbound trajectory toward the Moon. NASA describes this burn as the key engine firing required to break free of Earth’s orbit, and reports that with its completion Orion and its four astronauts are now committed to a flight around Earth’s nearest neighbor as part of a planned 10-day test mission.

The crew aboard Orion consists of NASA astronauts Reid Wiseman, Victor Glover, Christina Koch, and Canadian Space Agency astronaut Jeremy Hansen. NASA states that, following the translunar injection, Wiseman, Glover, Koch, and Hansen are on a precise trajectory toward the Moon. The agency also confirms that Orion is operating with crew in space for the first time during Artemis II, and that the mission is being used to gather critical data and to “learn from each step” as the spacecraft and its systems are exercised in deep space.

NASA explicitly frames this departure from Earth orbit as the first human venture beyond Earth’s immediate gravitational neighborhood since Apollo 17 in 1972. In comments released with the translunar injection update, Dr. Lori Glaze, acting associate administrator for the Exploration Systems Development Mission Directorate at NASA Headquarters in Washington, called the event a “big moment” and a major milestone for the Artemis program, while emphasizing that approximately eight intensive days of mission operations remain.

Artemis II began when NASA’s Space Launch System rocket and Orion spacecraft lifted off from Launch Pad 39B at Kennedy Space Center in Florida at 6:35 p.m. EDT on April 1, 2026, sending the four astronauts on a planned 10-day test flight around the Moon and back. After reaching space, Orion deployed its four solar array wings to begin drawing power from the Sun, and the crew and engineers on the ground immediately started transitioning the vehicle from launch to in-space flight operations, including initial checkouts of key systems. About 49 minutes into the test flight, the SLS upper stage fired to place Orion into an elliptical Earth orbit, setting up the conditions for the later translunar injection maneuver.

Original source: https://www.nasa.gov/news-release/nasas-artemis-ii-mission-leaves-earth-orbit-for-flight-around-moon/