NASA capsule on way to moon after launch by giant new rocket

CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. (AP) — A space capsule is hurtling toward the moon for the first time in 50 years.

The spacecraft with three test dummies aboard launched on top of NASA’s new moon rocket early Wednesday. The Florida launch brings the U.S. a big step closer to putting astronauts back on the lunar surface for the first time since the end of the Apollo program. If all goes well, the crew capsule will be propelled into a wide orbit around the moon, before returning to Earth with a Pacific splashdown in three weeks.

NASA hopes to send four astronauts around the moon on the next flight, in 2024, and land humans there as early as 2025.

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