From a Washington Post story by Christian Davenport headlined “NASA begins U.S. return to the moon as its huge SLS rocket finally flies”:

CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. — NASA took a significant step toward returning astronauts to the lunar surface early Wednesday, launching its massive Space Launch System rocket and lofting the first spacecraft designed to fly humans to the moon since the Apollo era.

Lifting off from the Kennedy Space Center at 1:47 a.m. Eastern time, the rocket thundered through the sky above the Florida Space Coast, as hordes of onlookers cheered an ambitious mission the agency hopes will become a new chapter in the history of human exploration.