Four astronauts have begun a historic 10-day journey to fly by the moon and propel people farther into space than they have ever gone before.
The Artemis II mission, which lifted off before sunset Wednesday, is scheduled to loop around the moon for the first time since the Apollo era. It is a crucial first chapter for an ambitious and risky program to eventually return people to the lunar surface, build a base there and use it as a stepping stone to push deeper into the solar system.