NASA's Artemis moon mission has launched after 4 postponements to put humans back on the moon

Nasa's most powerful rocket ever has launched from the Kennedy Space Center in Florida.

The first attempted launch in August was called off due to technical concerns. The same thing happened for a second attempt at the start of September.

Third time lucky. Artemis I is part of Nasa's plan to eventually return humans to the Moon. For this test flight, the cargo is non-human and includes a Shaun the Sheep toy.

NASA has spent more than $90 billion developing the vehicles for the Artemis missions, which begin with this uncrewed fly-by. The most important objective is testing the Lockheed Martin-built heat shield which protects Orion when it re-enters Earth’s atmosphere. The vehicle will be going 24,500 mph, or about 32 times the speed of sound; hitting the atmosphere at this speed will generate about half the heat of the sun. There’s no way to replicate those conditions on Earth, hence this mission.

Future Artemis missions will send a crew to orbit the Moon and then actually land astronauts, expected to be the first woman and first person of color on the Moon. That mission is penciled in for 2026, but more likely in 2028. A range of private companies are involved in the mission, with SpaceX building a lunar lander and other firms sending robots to the Moon for the space agency.