Spacecraft with NASA astronauts sets off for Moon for first time in over 50 years

NEW YORK, April 2. /TASS/. The Space Launch System launch vehicle carrying the Orion spacecraft with four NASA astronauts on board has set off toward the Moon, according to a live broadcast on the NASA website. The launch of the first US manned mission to the Moon since 1972 took place from the John F. Kennedy Space Center at 6:35 p.m. local time on April 1 (11:35 p.m. GMT on April 1). NASA astronauts Reid Wiseman, Christina Koch, and Victor Glover, along with Canadian astronaut Jeremy Hansen, are expected to fly around the Moon without landing on its surface, after which they will return to Earth. The mission is scheduled to last 10 days. An hour and a half before launch, engineers detected a malfunction in the remote flight termination system, but the problem was quickly resolved. The last manned mission to the Moon took place in December 1972 as part of the American Apollo 17 expedition.