Artemis II Departs for the Moon

NASA launched the Artemis II Space Launch System from Pad 39B at Kennedy Space Center at 6:35 p.m. EDT on Wednesday, April 1st, 2026.

Supercluster's Chief Photographer Erik Kuna and Content Manager Jenny Hautmann were both on-site for the historic liftoff after covering and photographing the Artemis program for several years now. They captured striking and dramatic images of humanity's first launch to the moon in over 50 years.

At 1:56 PM ET on April 6th, 2026, Commander Reid Wiseman, Pilot Victor Glover, Mission Specialist Christina Koch, and Canadian Space Agency Mission Specialist Jeremy Hansen officially became the four humans to travel farther from Earth than anyone before, surpassing the previous record set by Apollo 13 in 1970.

As the lunar flyby unfolded, the crew witnessed an Earthrise as Orion emerged from behind the Moon, moments before the Deep Space Network reacquired the spacecraft's signal. They also experienced a roughly hour-long solar eclipse — the crew observed the Sun's corona glowing around the lunar edge and watched for meteoroid impact flashes on the surface.