Watch as Nasa launched four astronauts on a 10-day flight around the Moon.
It was the most ambitious U.S. space mission in decades and a major step toward returning humans to the lunar surface.
On Monday, Nasa mission managers polled "go" to launch the mission's 322-ft (98-m) Space Launch System (SLS) rocket topped with the astronauts' Orion crew capsule as early as 6:24 pm EDT (10:24pm GMT) on Wednesday.
The launch took place at Nasa’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida one pad away from where the last moon-bound astronauts of the US Apollo program lifted off more than 50 years ago.
The Artemis II crew includes Nasa astronauts Christina Koch, Victor Glover and Reid Wiseman and Canadian astronaut Jeremy Hansen.
