Plus: The White House once again proposes slashing NASA's budget
| Welcome to our roundup of top SpaceNews stories, delivered every Friday! This week, Artemis 2 launches and heads to the moon, The White House proposes steep budget cuts for NASA, SpaceX reportedly files for an IPO and more.
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| | | | | OUR TOP STORY
| | By Jeff Foust NASA's Artemis 2 mission is on its way to the moon after a successful maneuver April 2.
The Orion spacecraft Integrity fired its main engine at 7:49 p.m. Eastern for five minutes and 50 seconds. The translunar injection, or TLI, burn, which took place as Orion reached the 185-kilometer perigee in its elliptical orbit around Earth, placed the spacecraft on a free-return trajectory around the moon.
"With that successful TLI, the crew is feeling pretty good up here on our way to the moon," Jeremy Hansen, one of the four astronauts on Artemis 2, told controllers shortly after the burn.
| | | | | | | CIVIL
| | The Artemis 2 mission will send humans to the vicinity of the moon for the first time in more than 50 years on a mission lasting about nine days and two hours. Orion will reach its farthest point from Earth a little more than five days after liftoff.
NASA modified operations of an astrophysics spacecraft in a decaying orbit to buy more time for a mission later this year that will attempt to raise its orbit.
For the second consecutive year, the White House is proposing a major budget cut for NASA that would significantly impact the agency's science programs and the International Space Station.
| | LAUNCH
| | The first launch of the Tianlong-3 rocket from Chinese commercial firm Space Pioneer failed Friday after suffering an anomaly in its ascent phase.
The European Space Agency has launched the first two satellites of the Celeste in-orbit demonstration mission from New Zealand aboard a Rocket Lab Electron launcher on March 28.
China plans to conduct around 140 orbital launches this year, according to a commercial launch executive, marking a sharp acceleration in the country's launch cadence. | | | | | | | COMMERCIAL
| | SpaceX has taken a key step toward going public after confidentially filing for a potentially record-breaking initial public offering, according to multiple reports citing people familiar with the matter, in what space leaders hope is a watershed moment for the industry.
Starcloud has raised a $170 million Series A to accelerate development of its next-generation spacecraft, reaching a $1.1 billion valuation as it awaits permission to deploy an 88,000-strong orbital data center network.
Amazon says it will revise deployment plans for its broadband satellite constellation while denying claims from SpaceX that its current approach represents a space safety risk. | | | | | | | FROM SPACENEWS |  | | Sale ends today! SpaceNews reporting allows you to track every major development across the industry. Give yourself a head start – subscribe today and save 25% on a new subscription with code STAYAHEAD. Sale ends Friday, April 3. | | | | | |  | Latest Press Releases
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