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April 3 (UPI) — NASA’s Artemis II crew left Earth orbit Thursday evening en route for the moon, marking a milestone not reached in more than 50 years.

The Orion spacecraft began a scheduled 5-minute, 50-second burn at 7:49 p.m. EDT, successfully propelling it and its four-person crew out of Earth orbit.

“Nominal translunar injection burn complete. The Artemis II crew is officially on the way to the moon,” NASA Administrator Jared Isaacman announced on social media.

“America is back in the business of sending astronauts to the moon. This time, farther than ever before.”

The crew of NASA astronauts Reid Wiseman, Victor Glover, Christina Koch and Canadian Space Agency astronaut Jeremy Hansen launched Wednesday evening from Florida’s Kennedy Space Center.

It is the first crewed mission to travel farther than low-Earth orbit since Apollo 17 in 1972.

The long-awaited exit from Earth orbit signaled that humankind is now on a trajectory to its closest celestial body, the moon at an average of 238,855 miles away.

“I got to tell you, there is nothing normal about this: sending four humans 250,000 miles away is a Herculean effort, and we are just realizing the gravity of that,” Reid said in a press conference after exiting orbit.

Asked what they are most excited about when they near the moon, Koch simply said it was views.

“Having just experienced incredible views of planet Earth and seeing the entire planet out the window in one pane, knowing that we’re about to have some similar views of the moon in that same way is definitely getting me more excited for it,” she said.

“I knew that that is what we would see, but there is nothing that prepares you for the breathtaking aspect of seeing your home planet both lit up bright as day and also the moon glow on it at night with the beautiful beam of the sunset and knowing we are going to get similar views of the moon, I’m just really excited for that.”

The Orion spacecraft is now on its way to the moon where the crew will perform a flyby, during which they will take high-resolution photographs and provide personal observations of the lunar surface, including the far side of the moon, NASA said.

After the flyby is completed, the four-person crew will begin their return to Earth, completing their 10-day deep-space journey with a splashdown in the Pacific Ocean on April 10.

The mission, in essence, is a crewed rehearsal for a future lunar landing, targeted for early 2028.