On April 1, 2026, the NASA spacecraft, Orion was launched into airspace for the start of mission Artemis. The crew consisted of four astronauts: astronaut and commander Reid Wiseman, Victor Glover, Christina Koch, and CSA astronaut Jeremy Hansen. This crew took off the NASA launch pad at approximately 6:35pm on April 1.

Artemis ll is the first successful mission with a female NASA astronaut. Christina Koch was the first woman to travel to the moon. She alongside others crew members made a successful trip around the moon.

The crew was expected to reach a total distance of 252,760 miles away from earth. That became a record distance, surpassing Apollo 13 by about 4,105 miles. The goal of this mission was to test and confirm the systems support to take astronauts into deep space exploration. NASA wanted to ‘establish a sustained presence on the Moon.’ According to NASA’s official website.

For 40 minutes, while the Artemis crew orbited around the back end of the moon, signal between NASA officials and the crew was lost due to the moon completely blocking the spacecraft. This was the farthest that any astronaut had ever been from earth.

The Artemis mission was a 10-day flight around the moon, where they concluded their mission on April 11, 2026, where they landed off the coast of San Diego. Wiseman, the crew commander even said, “It’s a special thing to be a human, and it’s a special thing to be on planet earth.” Quoted from space.com. This mission was the first to reach the moon in over half a century.

There were lots of emotional moments all over the world. For women all over the world, this was a big milestone- having the first woman astronaut to reach the moon. To most, Christina Koch is seen as an inspiration. A motivation that women can do anything a man can do. The sky is really the limit.

It also had its hold-your-breathe moment, especially at takeoff, considering the last big mission NASA went ahead with was the ‘Space Shuttle Challenger’ in 1986, which was a NASA shuttle that exploded shortly after takeoff. It resulted in all seven of the crew members passing away.

After all the disaster in the world right now, everyone was able to come together and watch this one of a kind remarkable mission take place in our timeline. This is revolutionary for people all over the world, especially for those who look up to Christina Koch’s women empowerment and the huge figure she takes on in the STEM world.