The translunar injection burn began at 19:49 EDT (23:49 GMT) and lasted for just under six minutes
"Humanity has once again shown what we are capable of," Canadian astronaut Jeremy Hansen says, in his first words after the completion of the burn
Nasa hails the procedure as "flawless" and says all the astronauts are "doing great"
The spacecraft began the burn at its lowest point of orbit relative to Earth, our science correspondent explains
No-one will land on the Moon during this mission, the Orion capsule will just circle it - how long does it take to get there
For all the gorgeous images and historic headlines, Nasa keeps stressing that Artemis II is, above all, a test.
And they've noted as much multiple times during tonight's news conference. This mission is about finding out how their Space Launch System, the Orion capsule and a human crew actually behave together in deep space, so they can one day send astronauts safely down to the lunar surface.
At the news conference, which wrapped up a short time ago, Artemis science lead Dr Lori Glaze said Orion’s big burn to propel it to the Moon was “flawless”, and that the crew and spacecraft are healthy and “on the path we designed” – but she added that the next eight days are about squeezing “everything this vehicle can teach us” out of the flight.
Engineers have already logged valuable data on ascent, on how Orion flies by hand during yesterday’s proximity‑operations demo, and on key life‑support hardware such as the carbon‑dioxide scrubbers, which all checked out.
Ascent flight director Judd Freeling said the space launch system placed Orion precisely where it was meant to be in orbit and every major burn since including tonight’s trans-lunar injection has been carried out as planned. Orion manager Howard Hu equated it to “test‑driving the car” and said they met all their objectives for manual flying.
So far, so good: there are niggles to work through, but by NASA’s own account they must be quietly delighted at how well both the rocket and Orion have performed so far on only the second test flight of the Artemis mission.
