NASA fired Orion's shuttle-heritage OMS-E engine at 7:49 PM EDT on 2 April 2026, executing a 5-minute, 50-second translunar injection burn that committed four astronauts to a lunar flyby 1. The engine delivered up to 6,000 pounds of thrust, consuming roughly 1,000 pounds of fuel from a 58,000-pound spacecraft. NASA declared the burn "flawless" 2.
The go/no-go decision that controllers had scheduled for approximately 8 PM ET came more than three hours early. Acting Associate Administrator Dr Lori Glaze confirmed the milestone: "Today, for the first time since Apollo 17 in 1972, humans have departed Earth orbit" 3.
The burn commits the crew to a free-return trajectory, a gravity-assisted arc that uses the Moon's pull to swing the spacecraft home without a separate engine firing. It is the same principle that brought Apollo 13 back safely in 1970. Lunar flyby is set for 6 April at 23:58 UTC, with closest approach 4,000 to 6,000 miles above the surface 4. Splashdown follows on approximately 10 April in the Pacific off San Diego.
The engine that executed this burn is a piece of Space Shuttle hardware from the 1990s . The Shuttle programme ended in 2011. Its engine outlived it by 15 years and counting, and has now sent humans further than any shuttle ever flew.
