Florida, April 2 -- The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) on Wednesday (local time) confirmed the successful separation of the Orion spacecraft from the upper stage of the rocket as part of the Artemis II mission and stated that the "proximity operations" test is currently underway.

In a post on X, NASA stated that astronauts aboard Orion are manually piloting the spacecraft in a manner similar to what would be required during docking with another spacecraft, marking a key milestone in the mission.

This development came hours after the successful launch of NASA's Artemis II mission, sending astronauts on a historic journey around the Moon for the first crewed lunar flyby in more than 50 years, since the Apollo 11 miss...