Artemis II of NASA lifted off smoothly from Launch Complex 39B at Kennedy Space Center in Florida at 6:35 p.m. Eastern on the 1st, 7:35 a.m. Korea time on the 2nd.
The mission is the first crewed flight to near the moon since Apollo 17 in 1972 and the first crewed test flight of the Space Launch System (SLS) rocket and the Orion spacecraft.
According to NASA, the original target time was 7:24 a.m. on the 2nd (Korea time), but with an additional hold introduced during the final countdown, the actual launch was delayed by 11 minutes.
NASA extended the hold during the final 10 minutes of the countdown, saying it was "a measure to secure time to complete final preparations." At the pad, there was work to resolve a communications hardware issue with the flight termination system (FTS), which can destroy the rocket from the ground, and a phenomenon in which the launch abort system (LAS) attitude control motor controller battery sensor indicated a higher-than-expected temperature was found.
NASA said the FTS-related hardware had undergone reliability testing and was ready to support the launch, and explained that the battery temperature issue was judged to be an instrument anomaly and would not affect the day's launch.
Immediately after liftoff, the initial flight also proceeded as planned. NASA said the rocket reached supersonic speed 56 seconds after liftoff, and major ascent phases followed in the scheduled order, including separation of the solid rocket boosters at 2 minutes 9 seconds.
Artemis II will carry out a mission of about 10 days to swing around the far side of the moon and return to Earth. The crew of four are Commander Reid Wiseman, Pilot Victor Glover, Christina Koch, and Jeremy Hansen of the Canadian Space Agency (CSA).
The reason this launch draws attention is that it is not a simple lunar flyby. NASA plans to validate, with actual crew aboard, core systems needed for future crewed moon landings, including life support, deep-space communications, navigation, manual piloting, and reentry capability.
The smooth launch of Artemis II is expected to bolster NASA's long-term lunar exploration plans. NASA recently adjusted the Artemis program to add an extra mission in 2027 to re-test system capabilities in near-Earth space and said it will pursue a crewed exploration of the lunar south pole in 2028. The launch is viewed as the first crewed gateway that brings the "Moon to Mars" vision—leading to long-duration lunar stays and crewed Mars exploration—into a practical phase.