After two failed attempts, NASA has successfully launched the Moon-bound megarocket Space Launch System, which will travel to the far side of the Moon and farther than any other manned spacecraft. The Artemis 1 mission is the first step in NASA’s plan to return to the Moon for the first time in 50 years and eventually go to Mars in the 2030s. The rocket was launched from NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida at 06:48 UTC on Wednesday, November 16, 2022.

At 06:57 UTC, NASA announced that the SLS rocket had succeeded in shutting down the main engine in its mission schedule. The RS-25 engines were shut down and the main stage was reserved. The next step is to place solar panels so that the rocket can be powered by the Sun. The unmanned test flight will travel 64,000 km (40,000 miles) to the far side of the moon.

The mission will last 25 days 11 hours 36 minutes. The Space Launch System (SLS) will descend back to Earth on December 11, 2022, after covering a total of 2.09 million kilometers (1.3 million miles). It’s the first in a series of increasingly complex missions aimed at returning humans to the moon for the first time since December 1972.

The new SLS rocket in use is the most powerful rocket NASA has ever launched, and will not only fly to the moon—farther than any human-made spacecraft has flown—but also launch several small satellites. On board will be the Orion Crew capsule, a somewhat odd mix of mannequins, artifacts, souvenirs, and zero-gravity displays. The goal is to practice operating the spacecraft and to test crew conditions to ensure the spacecraft is safe for future crew members. In 2024, NASA plans to launch Artemis 2, Artemis’ first crewed mission into space, using an even more powerful version of the Space Launch System rocket (if suits are ready). Artemis 3 is scheduled for launch in 2025 and aims to land the first woman and first black human on the Moon’s south pole.