Artemis II astronauts rocket toward the moon after circling Earth

NASA’s Artemis II astronauts have fired their engines and are blazing toward the moon.

The so-called translunar injection came 25 hours after liftoff, putting the three Americans and one Canadian on course for a lunar fly-around early next week.

Their Orion capsule has bolted out of orbit around Earth and chased after the moon nearly 250,000 miles away.

It is the first engine firing for a moon crew since Apollo 17 set out on that era’s final moonshot in 1972.

NASA had the Artemis II crew stick close to home for a day to test their capsule’s life-support systems before clearing them for lunar departure.