NASA launches 4 astronauts on a crewed lunar mission, Artemis II

S&T – SPACE

3 APRIL 2026

• Four astronauts blasted off aboard a massive NASA rocket, Orion, named Integrity by the crew.
• They are on a  nine-day lunar flyby mission, Artemis II, a first in more than 50 years, since Apollo 17 in 1972.
• This was the second flight of the Space Launch System (SLS) and the first crewed flight of the Orion spacecraft.
• The team includes Americans Reid Wiseman, Victor Glover and Christina Koch along with Canadian Jeremy Hansen.
• During the mission, Victor Glover (an African-American) became the first person of color, Christina Koch the first woman, Canadian Space Agency astronaut Jeremy Hansen the first non-U.S. citizen, and commander Reid Wiseman the oldest person to travel beyond low Earth orbit.
• The astronauts successfully completed “promixity operations” demonstrations, which tested how their Orion capsule can move.