Let's Dance with the Moon: follow the Artemis II mission with Flight Day updates.

 

April 11, 2026 update

In 1969 as a young boy, I was lucky to have watched, along with the entire world, Apollo 11 launch and land on the Moon and return safely to the Earth. A mission started by the leadership of President John F. Kennedy. Now my children will, in a few more years, also see humans land and walk on the Moon. April 1 was the first launch window, of about 2 hours in duration, for a chance to launch Artemis-II into Earth orbit with four NASA astronauts, three Americans and one Canadian. Mother Nature cooperated, and so did the rocket, launching at 6:35 PM EST.

The Orion spacecraft has just over 355,000 parts, built by NASA and prime contractor Lockheed Martin. The spacecraft injected itself into a flight into deep space on April 2, headed around the moon to return to Earth. We all watched for 10 earth-flight days the successful test of the space craft as four of human kind travelled farther from Earth than anyone in human history. Over 3/4 of all persons on Earth were born after Apollo 17, the last time human walked on the Moon. I am one of the 1/4 persons who were born before Apollo and got to see all of the Apollo astronauts walk on the Moon.

Crew assembling seating and stowing cargo, preparation for reentry on Flight Day 10

LINK TO: 

NASA Video Event: Artemis Crew Returns to Houston 4PM EST (Saturday 4/11/2026)

APOLLO 11 TRACKER: the Pandemic Lockdown Edition for NASA Lovers like me.

Come with me in 2019, and follow in real-time (50 years ago) what is/was going on with the Apollo 11 Mission to the Moon. You can get these reference books today if you are a NASA fan like me. I also have my Buzz Aldrin NASA Ball Cap on. These books were news reference books published by NASA. They were in the hands of Walter Cronkite and his coworkers and they are great for nerds like me. 

Updated April 3, 2026, my Apollo 11 blog in real-time, first posted in July 2019 recapturing the mission of Apollo 11 on it's 50th anniversary. I also reposted this for anyone stuck at home during our COVID19 pandemic stay-at-home activities (2020) for its 51st anniversary. I am old enough to have watched Apollo missions on TV, CBS News, with Walter Cronkite the voice who guided us through each mission live. It is quite true that scientists and engineers of my age were young children who discovered our love of science and technology from the NASA Apollo program, and some of us from Mr. Spock on Star Trek (original series). All on a black and white TV and newspaper clippings from the Toronto Star, NYTimes and Washington Post. Now my children in 2026 will soon see humans reach the Moon and walk on the Moon once again. My tracking post on the Artemis-II mission of April 2026 is here in The Science Rant: Artemis-II if you would like to compare Apollo to Artemis.