Artemis 2, a crewed spacecraft tasked with the first lunar exploration mission in half a century, successfully launched its rocket on Tuesday.
The Artemis 2 rocket lifted off at 6:35 p.m. Eastern Time on Tuesday from the Kennedy Space Center in Florida, according to the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA).
Artemis 2 consists of the 98-meter-tall Space Launch System (SLS) and the Orion crew capsule. Four astronauts are aboard the Orion: Commander Reid Wiseman, NASA astronauts Victor Glover and Christina Koch, and Canadian astronaut Jeremy Hansen.
This marks the first launch of a crewed spacecraft for lunar exploration since Apollo 17 in December 1972. The total flight duration is 10 days, with a planned travel distance of 1,102,400 kilometers.