NASA, the American space agency, launched this Wednesday (1) at 7:36 pm (Brasília time) the Artemis II mission, the first manned mission to the Moon in 54 years. This time, four astronauts will make a 10-day flight around the Earth’s satellite.
The rocket entered orbit about 10 minutes after launch. It was launched from the Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral, Florida, United States. The launch was considered successful and to date, no failures have been identified.
A large audience of people watched the launch from a stand at Cape Canaveral itself.
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This is considered the United States’ most ambitious space mission in decades and an important step toward returning humans to the lunar surface before China’s first manned landing.
The crew is made up of American astronauts Reid Wiseman, Victor Glover and Christina Koch, and Canadian Jeremy Hansen. This is the first time that a woman, a black man and a non-American citizen will participate in a mission to the Moon.
The objective is to test the systems for a future landing on the satellite. The agency wants to land on the Moon by 2028 and, from there, set out to conquer other worlds, starting with Mars.
The furthest journey in history
The Artemis II mission will send the crew approximately 406,000 km into space – the longest journey ever undertaken by humans.
The current record for the farthest spaceflight, approximately 248,000 miles, is held by the three-man crew of the Apollo 13 lunar mission in 1970, which was plagued by technical problems after an oxygen tank exploded and was unable to land on the Moon as planned.
Humans have not left Earth’s orbit since the last Apollo mission in 1972.
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NASA launched its first uncrewed Artemis mission in 2022, sending the Orion spacecraft on a similar path around the Moon.
*With information from Reuters and Estadão Conteúdo.
