NASA’s crew of astronauts launched to space and reached a stable orbit, kicking off a landmark journey that will take them closer to the lunar surface than anyone has been in more than 50 years.

The initial phase of the 10-day mission to lap the moon, a multibillion-dollar feat about a decade in the making, clears a major hurdle for NASA and its legacy aerospace contractors as the agency works to establish a base on the lunar surface and ultimately venture to Mars.

The crew’s Lockheed Martin Corp-built Orion capsule, stacked on the shoulders of Boeing Co’s Space Launch System rocket, thundered off the launchpad at 6:35 pm local time at Kennedy Space Center in Florida.

The rocket system, taller than the Statue of Liberty, reached speeds of around 17,500 miles per hour as it hurtled to space. It blazed a trail of fire and smoke as it climbed and eventually shed its spent side boosters, which provided extra thrust.

Inside the capsule, the astronauts could be seen pressed into their seats in bright orange space suits. About eight minutes into the flight, SLS’ main engines shut down as expected and the capsule reached space.

“We have a beautiful moonrise. We’re headed right at it,” NASA astronaut and mission commander Reid Wiseman said during the live broadcast.

About an hour later, the Orion capsule’s main engine ignited, putting the spacecraft and the crew into a stable orbit around Earth.

The crew are set to travel farther in space than anyone in history.

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The Artemis voyages will attempt to repeat and then leapfrog feats achieved during the historic Apollo program that landed Neil Armstrong and 11 other men on the lunar surface in the 1960s and 1970s.

Watch parties occurred across the country, including in major space hubs like Seattle, Houston and Huntsville, Alabama, where the core stage of the SLS is produced. Hundreds of thousands of viewers tuned into live feeds of the mission.

With Artemis — named after the twin goddess of Apollo — NASA aims to stay on the moon long-term. President Donald Trump’s NASA administrator, Jared Isaacman has laid out a decade-long $30-billion plan to set up a base on the moon where astronauts can live and work.

Isaacman has also sped through a significant makeover of the overall mission, including adding a test mission in 2027 that will send a crew to dock with one of the lunar landers being built by Elon Musk’s SpaceX and Jeff Bezos’ Blue Origin.

“We’re going to send them farther into space than any humans have gone before, 250,000 miles away,” Isaacman said minutes before the launch. “And it’s going to set up for the subsequent missions.”

The crew will spend roughly four days traveling to the lunar vicinity, where they will swing behind the moon’s far side — a vantage that is never seen from Earth. They are slated to perform a flyby of the lunar surface on April 6.

If the mission unfolds as planned, their trajectory will take them within roughly 4,112 miles (6,618 kilometers) of the moon during their closest approach, with the orb appearing about the size of a basketball in an outstretched hand in the capsule window.

Wiseman, a 27-year Navy veteran and former head of the agency’s astronaut office, is joined by NASA astronauts Victor Glover, the mission’s pilot, and Christina Koch, a mission specialist who conducted the first all-female spacewalk. Canadian astronaut Jeremy Hansen, another crew member, will be flying to space for the first time on this trip.

Roughly three and a half hours after launch, Glover will steer Orion up close to a piece of the SLS rocket while in orbit, demonstrating the ability to closely approach another spacecraft. The same maneuvering will potentially be used to dock Orion with future lunar landers that will take astronauts down to the surface of the moon.

On the second day of the flight, the Orion spacecraft will ignite its main engine, sending the crew en route to the moon.

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The Artemis II mission is notable for its numerous “firsts.” Koch will be the first woman to fly near the moon, while Glover will be the first Black astronaut to do the same. Hansen will also become the first Canadian to fly to the moon.

The mission marks just the second flight of the SLS rocket, which has fallen many years behind schedule. The rocket and Orion have suffered various schedule delays and cost overruns, which have pushed back the entire Artemis program.

US Senator Mark Kelly, of Arizona, embraced Isaacman’s new plans to build a moon base, but he also shared a dose of skepticism about NASA’s ability to land on the lunar surface in 2028.

“It’s going to be tough,” Kelly told reporters before crew members boarded the capsule. “I don’t think it’s out of the question.”

After the NASA crew fly by the moon, gravity will pull them back to Earth.

On the tenth day of the mission, their capsule will reenter the planet’s atmosphere and they will descend under parachutes and splash down in the Pacific Ocean.

A recovery ship and a team of divers with NASA and the US Navy will meet up with the capsule to pull the crew out of the water.