Nasa on Wednesday (local time) confirmed that the Orion spacecraft had successfully separated from the rocket’s upper stage as part of the Artemis II mission. The agency said that proximity operations tests were now underway.Sharing the video of the separation online, Nasa said astronauts aboard Orion were manually piloting the spacecraft in a way similar to docking with another spacecraft.The update came hours after Artemis II launched successfully, sending astronauts on a historic journey around the Moon. This is the first crewed lunar flyby in over 50 years, since the Apollo 11 mission in 1969, which carried the first humans to the Moon.The mission lifted off from Launch Pad 39B at Kennedy Space Center in Florida aboard Nasa’s Space Launch System rocket.Describing the launch as a defining moment, Nasa Administrator Jared Isaacman said, “Artemis II is the start of something bigger than any one mission. It marks our return to the Moon, not just to visit, but to eventually stay on our Moon Base, and lays the foundation for the next giant leaps ahead.”The mission will last about 10 days. The crew includes Nasa astronauts Reid Wiseman, Victor Glover, Christina Koch, and Canadian space agency astronaut Jeremy Hansen.During the mission, Orion will travel into high Earth orbit before performing a translunar injection burn to set it on a path around the Moon. The astronauts will conduct a lunar flyby, observing and capturing images of the Moon’s surface, including areas rarely seen by humans.
