NASA’s Artemis II mission management team polled “Go” for the translunar injection burn to send the crew in the Orion spacecraft toward the Moon and send humans around Earth’s closest celestial neighbor for the first time since Apollo 17 in 1972.
The spacecraft will ignite its main engine on the service module for five minutes and 49 seconds beginning at 7:49 p.m. EDT.
Orion’s main engine provides up to 6,000 pounds of thrust, enough to accelerate a car from 0 to 60 mph in about 2.7 seconds.
NASA astronauts Reid Wiseman, Victor Glover, Christina Koch and CSA (Canadian Space Agency) astronaut Jeremy Hansen began their day at 2:35 p.m. with the playing “Green Light,” by John Legend and Andre 3000 by the mission control team and moved into their first full day of activities in space. The crew members are preparing for the burn and will conduct their first exercise sessions on the spacecraft’s flywheel exercise device, a key tool for maintaining fitness during long‑duration missions.
View the latest imagery from the Artemis II mission on our Artemis II Multimedia Resource Page. Please follow @NASAArtemis on X, Facebook, and Instagram for real-time updates. Live coverage of the mission is available on NASA’s YouTube channel.
