Commander Reid Wiseman, a 50-year-old Navy captain and former test pilot, calmly radioed updates from the cockpit of the Orion spacecraft at the tip of the SLS rocket. He was joined in the cockpit by pilot Victor Glover (another Navy captain), mission specialist Christina Koch, and Canadian astronaut Jeremy Hansen.

From outdated tech to funding hurdles, here’s why astronauts haven’t landed on the moon in over five decades

Why it matters: Artemis II is a critical test mission to shake down spacecraft systems, enabling a permanent human presence on the Moon and preparing for future missions to Mars. Free-return trajectory – a path that loops around the Moon and returns to Earth without propulsion