The Space Launch System (SLS) rocket, carrying the Orion spacecraft with four NASA astronauts, has taken off for the Moon. A live broadcast of the first manned mission to the Moon since 1972 is available on NASA's website.
The launch took place from the Kennedy Space Center at 6:35 p.m. local time (0:35 a.m. Bulgarian time). NASA astronauts Reid Weissman, Christina Koch and Victor Glover, along with Canadian astronaut Jeremy Hansen, are expected to orbit the Moon without landing before returning to Earth. The total duration of the mission is expected to be 10 days.
An hour and a half before launch, engineers discovered a malfunction in the remote abort system, but the problem was quickly resolved.
The last manned mission to the Moon took place in December 1972, as part of the American mission “Apollo 17“.
In the spring of 2019, NASA announced the “Artemis“ lunar program, consisting of three phases. The first (Artemis I) envisaged an unmanned flight of the “Orion“ spacecraft around the Moon and its return to Earth. The flight took place from November 16 to December 11, 2022.
The second phase of the program (Artemis II) provides for a manned flyby of Earth's natural satellite.
In the third phase (Artemis III), NASA hopes to land astronauts on the Moon.
In June 2025, US Secretary of Transportation Sean Duffy stated that a Moon landing could occur within the next 3.5 years, although NASA had previously proposed a target date of mid-2027.