NASA’s Artemis II goes to the moon

By Anna FitzGerald Guth

April 1, 2026 (SFGate.com)

NASA's Artemis II moon rocket lifts off from the Kennedy Space Center's Launch Pad 39-B Wednesday, April 1, 2026, in Cape Canaveral, Fla.

NASA footage showed its rocket successfully taking off from the Kennedy Space Center in Florida on Wednesday afternoon, carrying four astronauts out of view of the crowd that had gathered below to watch the historic launch. 

Among the crew — three Americans and one Canadian — is California-raised Victor Glover, the mission’s pilot, and Christina Koch, the first woman to head to the moon. Glover will also become the first Black man to circumnavigate it.

FILE: Artemis II NASA astronauts, left to right, Reid Wiseman, Victor Glover, and Christina Koch, and CSA (Canadian Space Agency) astronaut Jeremy Hansen are pictured at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida on Wednesday, Sept. 20, 2023.

The 10-day mission will take astronauts farther from Earth than humans have ever traveled. While no landing is planned, it’s a key step toward future moon missions — and eventually, missions to Mars.

The 32-story rocket lifted off at 3:35 p.m. Pacific. It marks the first crewed journey to the moon since 1972.

“We still call amazing things that humans do moonshots, and now our generation is going to get to have one of our own,” said Glover, who was born in Pomona and studied engineering at Cal Poly San Luis Obispo.

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