Headline Roundup • April 2nd, 2026
A Mission Around the Moon: Artemis II Successfully Launches From Earth
Summary from the AllSides News Team
NASA's Artemis II lunar mission successfully launched on Wednesday, putting four North American astronauts in orbit and prompting widespread mainstream media coverage.
The Mission: As of April 2, the Orion spacecraft is in an orbital test phase, after which it will proceed to the far side of the Moon on April 6 and return to Earth on April 10. The mission follows 2022's Artemis I, which, after a few delayed launches, sent an unmanned Orion vessel around the moon in 26 days. Artemis II aims to test the rocket's critical systems. If all goes according to plan, once it reaches the moon, it will swing back to Earth without needing its engines via the power of orbit.
Wider Context: Artemis II is part of a sequence of missions that aims to put humans on the moon and eventually Mars. NASA recently rescheduled Artemis III, which would accomplish a moon landing, pushing its anticipated launch back to 2028.
Previous Delays: The Artemis project was first announced in 2012 and targeted 2017 for its Artemis I launch. In 2024, NASA told UNILAD (Center bias) it was planning to launch Artemis II by 2024.
Historical Context: A successful mission would mark the farthest any human has traveled from Earth since Apollo 17 in 1972. The crew is made up of three American astronauts and one Canadian – Reid Wiseman, Victor Glover, Christina Koch, and Jeremy Hansen. Glover would become the first black man to travel around the moon, and Koch the first woman. Hansen, who is making his maiden voyage into space, would become the first Canadian to do so.
How The Media Covered It: The story was very widely covered across the spectrum. Most outlets struck a positive tone and did not mention more critical aspects such as the project's past delays. Libertarian publication Reason Magazine (Center) published an opinion titled, "NASA's Artemis Program Is a Monument to Government Waste. It Can Only Go Up From Here."
Past Perspectives: In 2024, Michael Bloomberg, owner of Bloomberg (Lean Left), published the opinion "NASA's $100 Billion Moon Mission Is Going Nowhere." Previously, in 2022, the publication published a similarly critical opinion, dubbing the operation "a gigantic waste of money." In August 2025, Scientific American (Center) published an opinion titled, "Strong Support for NASA and Project Artemis Will Advance the U.S."
Written by the AllSides staff (of humans). Learn more. Support our mission. Suggest an improvement to this summary.
Featured Coverage of this Story
NASA is sending four astronauts — three from the United States and one from Canada — on a trip around the moon and back without landing there. This is the first time that anyone would travel this far from Earth since Apollo 17 in 1972. The flight launched at 6:35 p.m. Eastern time on April 1.
If Artemis II succeeds, missions that return astronauts to the moon's surface could follow later in the decade.
Here's what to know about the mission, and the astronauts making the trip.
You could almost hear a sigh of relief from Nasa on Wednesday as its Artemis II rocket finally blasted off.
There's a lot riding on this mission - the safety of its four astronauts, Nasa's reputation, and the credibility of America's claim to be leading the new global space race.
There are mundane questions too: Could the onboard toilet break again? When can the crew nap?
The Epoch Times
For the first time in more than half a century, people around the world can look to the sky and know somewhere up there a crew of astronauts is on its way to the Moon.
They are NASA astronauts Reid Wiseman (commander), Victor Glover (pilot), and Christina Koch (mission specialist), and Canadian Space Agency astronaut Jeremy Hansen (mission specialist).
At 6:35 p.m. ET on April 1, they charged off the launch pad at Kennedy Space Center in Florida aboard the largest spacecraft built to carry humans into deep space and...
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