Space & Astronomy

Live: Artemis II launch - first manned Moon mission in 53 years

By T.K. Randall
April 1, 2026 ·  169 comments

Image: Artemis II Rollout
Credit: Joel Kowsky / (PD) NASA For many of us, it has been more than an entire lifetime since the last human orbited the Moon - a long-lost era of space exploration that ended in 1972 with the conclusion of the Apollo 17 mission.

Now, at last, a whole new generation will have the chance to witness such a mission for the first time.

At approximately 6:24 PM EST today, Artemis II will launch into the heavens - carrying with it the hopes of everyone around the world and kick-starting a new age of manned space flight.The astronauts going on the mission will be NASA's Reid Wiseman, Victor Glover and Christina Koch, as well as Jeremy Hansen of the Canadian Space Agency.

They will spend around ten days in space before returning to the Earth.

NASA will be live-streaming the entire mission from start to finish, so it will be easier than ever to keep up with what's happening along the way.

You can watch along on the feed below.


Source: NASA | Comments (169)

Tags: Artemis, Moon