Expedition 74 Crew Sees Artemis II Moon Rocket Trails | International Space Station

Expedition 74 Crew Sees Artemis II Moon Rocket Trails | International Space Station

Expedition 74 Flight Engineer and NASA Astronaut Chris Williams: "Godspeed Artemis II! Our crew on the International Space Station stayed up to watch the launch of our friends on their historic mission to the Moon. We were over the Northern Pacific Ocean at the time of launch, so we couldn’t see it directly (we watched it on NASA TV). However, about a half hour later, as we orbited a few hundred kilometers from Florida, I was able to catch a glimpse of the remnants of the trail the rocket made as it passed through the atmosphere! You can see the effect of the wind at different altitudes."

NASA’s Space Launch System (SLS) rocket carrying the Orion spacecraft with NASA astronauts Reid Wiseman, commander; Victor Glover, pilot; Christina Koch, mission specialist; and Canadian Space Agency (CSA) astronaut Jeremy Hansen, mission specialist onboard, were successfully launched at 6:35 p.m. EDT on their Artemis II mission, Wednesday, April 1, 2026, from Launch Complex 39B at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida. 

NASA’s Artemis II mission will take Wiseman, Glover, Koch, and Hansen on a 10-day journey around the Moon and back aboard their Orion spacecraft.

Watch Artemis II Mission coverage on:

NASA+: https://plus.nasa.gov/scheduled-events/

YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/nasa

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/NASA/

X: https://x.com/nasa

Twitch: https://www.twitch.tv/nasa

Check the Artemis blog for updates: 

https://blogs.nasa.gov/artemis/

Follow Expedition 74:
https://blogs.nasa.gov/spacestation/

Expedition 74 Crew
Station Commander: Sergey-Kud Sverchkov (Russia)
Roscosmos (Russia) Flight Engineers: Andrey Fedyaev, Sergei Mikaev

European Space Agency Flight Engineer: Sophie Adenot

NASA Flight Engineers: Jessica Meir, Jack Hathaway, Chris Williams

An international partnership of space agencies provides and operates the elements of the International Space Station (ISS). The principals are the space agencies of the United States, Russia, Europe, Japan, and Canada.

Image Credit: NASA/C. Williams

Date: April 1, 2026

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