Mike Baker

Welcome back to the PDB Afternoon Bulletin.

For the first time in more than half a century, astronauts are on their way around the moon.

Isn't it nice to be talking about something other than a conflict in the world?

If you were along Florida's Space Coast around 6.35 p.m.

yesterday, you likely heard and saw NASA's Artemis II mission left off from Kennedy Space Center with crowds lining the Sunshine State's beaches, watching as the rocket lit up the sky and pushed east over the Atlantic.

On board, four astronauts beginning a 10-day journey that will carry them around the far side of the moon, farther from Earth than any humans have ever traveled.

The last time we saw anything like this was back in 1972, when Apollo 17 sent the final crew of the Apollo era toward the lunar surface.

Artemis II is designed to test the systems that will carry astronauts back to the moon.

That means putting NASA's Orion spacecraft through a full shakedown flight, sending the crew out, looping them around the far side of the moon, and bringing them home safely.

There will be no lunar landing or orbit, just a critical proof of concept that the U.S.

can once again carry humans beyond low Earth orbit and sustain that capability.

After reaching an initial low Earth orbit just after launch, Artemis II traveled at roughly 17,500 miles per hour, circling the Earth before the Interim Cryogenic Propulsion Stage, or the ICPS, because how could NASA not love acronyms?

The ICPS is what pushes a spacecraft into a higher orbit.

Then the crew makes the key move.

They jettison the ICPS and execute what's known as a translunar injection.

Yes, that's the first time I've ever used that phrase.

A maneuver that breaks free from Earth's gravitational pull, accelerating the spacecraft to around 24,500 miles per hour, or 11 miles every second, and sending it on trajectory toward the moon.

At its farthest point, Artemis II will carry its crew about 4,700 miles beyond the Moon, easily surpassing the previous record set during Apollo 13, which reached just 158 miles past the lunar surface.

Inside the spacecraft, you're also seeing just how much technology has evolved since the Apollo era.

Orion is larger, offering about 50% more habitable volume with more windows and computing systems that process data tens of thousands of times faster with dramatically more onboard memory.