Passengers aboard a commercial flight received an unexpected front-row seat to history Wednesday evening as they captured rare mid-air footage of NASA’s Artemis II mission thundering toward the moon.

The aircraft, cruising at high altitude, happened to pass near the launch trajectory at the exact moment the Space Launch System (SLS) rocket lifted off from Kennedy Space Centre at 6:35 p.m. EDT. Video shared across social media shows the world’s most powerful rocket piercing through thick cloud cover, leaving a brilliant, smoky plume against the blue sky.

The mission carries a diverse crew of four—Reid Wiseman, Victor Glover, Christina Koch, and Jeremy Hansen—on a 10-day journey around the moon. This marks the first time humans have travelled to the lunar vicinity since the Apollo 17 mission in 1972.

While ground-based cameras provided the official record of the historic liftoff, the perspective from the commercial jet offered a unique sense of scale, showing the Orion spacecraft "slingshotting" away from Earth. NASA officials confirmed the launch was successful, and the crew is currently performing system checkouts in high Earth orbit before heading toward the lunar far side.