US Return to Moon

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NASA’s Artemis II Crew Launches to the Moon 6:30 pm EDT Apr 1 No kidding!


dd  [April 2, 2026] - After a yearslong parade of missteps, the United States yesterday launched astronauts toward the Moon. In the first such mission since December 1972, four voyagers dramatically bolted into the twilight sky above the Kennedy Space Center near Cape Canaveral, Fla.

 

The on-board crew operating the Orion spacecraft comprises NASA’s Reid Wiseman, mission commander; Victor Glover and Christina Koch; as well as Jeremy Hansen of the Canadian Space Agency. They are now in high Earth orbit, preparatory to a journey to the Moon.

 

The early flight included a brief loss in communications, and a control panel malfunction indicating problems with their craft’s toilet. This dashboard snafu was quickly toggled and solved.

 

Later today, the go/no-go decision will come on the plan to leave Earth orbit and head to its moon.

 

This manned return to Moon flight – the Artemis II mission calls for the astronauts to “loop the moon” but not land – is a first step on this country’s return to lunar travel. It comes as industrial space efforts are growing.

 

It follows decades of shrinking budgets, shifting political strategies and strings of cancelled program initiatives.

 

Similar motivation that spurred the long-ago Apollo moon flights drives this Artemis II mission. Work toward 1969’s historic moon landing was impelled by a geopolitical Space Race with the USSR. The Artemis II mission has gained rapid momentum as China prepared for its first manned lunar landing.

 

Among areas that space experts will carefully watch is re-entry. When unmanned Artemis I flew in 2022, its heat shield was damaged on re-entry. Always a dramatic moment in space flight, the re-entry on this first crewed mission will be closely watched.jv

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