Four astronauts aboard NASA’s Orion spacecraft are completing the first crewed test flight of the Artemis program, having launched from Kennedy Space Center in Florida on April 1, 2026, at 6:35 p.m. EDT.
NASA astronauts Reid Wiseman, Victor Glover, and Christina Koch, along with Canadian Space Agency astronaut Jeremy Hansen, lifted off from launch pad 39B to initiate a mission designed to test Orion’s systems in deep space as they travel around the Moon and back to Earth.
The crew has been sharing live updates throughout the flight, with NASA providing real-time coverage on its YouTube channel and additional streams of views from inside and outside the capsule when bandwidth allows.
On April 6, 2026, during flight day six, the Orion spacecraft reached its closest approach to the Moon at approximately 4,067 miles above the lunar surface, traveling at 60,863 miles per hour relative to Earth but only 3,139 miles per hour relative to the Moon.
Later that evening, the crew achieved a recent record for human spaceflight by reaching their maximum distance from Earth at 252,756 miles — 4,111 miles farther than the Apollo 13 mission in 1970 — at 7:02 p.m. EDT.
Shortly after, the astronauts witnessed an Earthrise as Orion emerged from behind the Moon, moments before the Deep Space Network reacquired the spacecraft’s signal and restored communications at 7:24 p.m. EDT.
By 8:35 p.m. EDT on April 6, 2026, Orion entered a solar eclipse lasting about an hour as the spacecraft, Moon, and Sun aligned, allowing the crew to observe the solar corona and monitor for meteoroid flashes that could inform understanding of lunar hazards.
At 9:35 p.m. EDT that same day, the crew completed the lunar observation phase and began the return trip home, with Orion scheduled to exit the lunar sphere of influence on April 7, 2026, at approximately 1:25 p.m. EDT, at a distance of 41,072 miles from the Moon.
NASA continues to provide mission updates through live briefings from the Johnson Space Center in Houston, with daily status reports held throughout the mission except on April 6 due to lunar flyby activities.
The astronauts are participating in pre-scheduled live conversations with Earth, with NASA providing exact times for these downlink events and the latest mission coverage on the Artemis blog.
To track Orion’s position in space, the public can visit NASA’s designated tracking portal.
This mission represents a critical step in NASA’s Artemis program, which aims to return humans to the Moon for scientific discovery, economic benefits, and to build the foundation for the first crewed missions to Mars.
