CAPE CANAVERAL (REUTERS)

Four astronauts blasted off from Florida on Wednesday on NASA’s Artemis II mission, a high-stakes voyage around the moon that marks the United States’ boldest step yet towards returning humans to the lunar surface later this decade in a race with China.

NASA’s Space Launch System rocket, topped with its Orion crew capsule, roared to life just before sunset at the agency’s Kennedy Space Centre, carrying its debut crew, three US astronauts and a Canadian astronaut, into Earth orbit.

If the mission proceeds as planned, NASA astronauts Reid Wiseman, Victor Glover, and Christina Koch, alongside Canadian Space Agency astronaut Jeremy Hansen, will fly around the moon and back on a nearly 10-day mission designed to test the spacecraft on its first flight with astronauts on board.

The mission is the debut crewed test flight in the Artemis programme, successor to NASA’s Apollo project, and the first mission in 53 years to send astronauts beyond Earth orbit into the moon’s vicinity.

It serves as a crucial rehearsal for NASA’s goal of landing humans on the lunar surface later this decade. NASA is targeting 2028 for Artemis IV, which would aim for the moon’s South Pole, as the US seeks to stay ahead of China’s planned crewed lunar mission.

The last time astronauts walked on the moon was during the final Apollo mission in 1972.

A few hours after liftoff, the rocket’s upper stage successfully separated from the Lockheed Martin-made Orion capsule and its propulsion module. The crew then began an early test objective, manually steering the spacecraft around the upper stage to demonstrate its manoeuvrability if automated controls were to fail.

The launch marked a major milestone for NASA’s Space Launch System after more than a decade of development, and a key validation that the system is ready to carry humans safely into space.

Artemis II will send its four-person crew about 406,000 kilometres into space, farther than humans have ever travelled. The current record is held by Apollo 13, whose crew reached about 399,000 kilometres in 1970.

NASA launched its first Artemis mission without crew in 2022, sending Orion on a similar journey around the moon and back. Artemis II is expected to provide a broader test of both Orion and the Space Launch System as NASA prepares for future lunar landings.