All articles tagged with #spaceflight
NASA’s Artemis II carried multiple cameras, including a Nikon D5 DSLR, a Nikon Z9, an iPhone 17 Pro and action cams, prompting buzz about the D5’s enduring relevance. Photographers say newer gear isn’t everything and that lens quality and technique often matter more than the body, with the mission’s images showing older cameras can still produce spectacular Earth–Moon views during the lunar flyby and observations.
An inside look at NASA’s Artemis II Mission Control in Houston shows a modern nerve center where flight directors guide the mission, a capsule communicator talks directly with the crew, and a new Science desk joins the room’s familiar subsystems and screens. The setup tracks milestones with a countdown, preserves decades of mission-history posters and rituals, and, while the room has evolved from Apollo-era green mainframes to wood desks and digital workflows, the core systems and spirit of exploration remain the same—as Judd Frieling notes, NASA is building on the giants of Apollo, Shuttle, and ISS as Artemis moves forward.
Artemis II’s four astronauts wake for the mission’s final phase, prepping for a high-speed return from a 10‑day lunar cruise. They’re set to reenter at about 25,000 mph and splash down off San Diego around 8:07 p.m. EDT, with NASA’s live coverage starting at 6:30 p.m. EDT. The heat shield—nearly the same as Artemis I’s and a known risk—will be closely watched as commander Reid Wiseman, pilot Victor Glover, and mission specialists Christina Koch and Jeremy Hansen bring the crew home, potentially making them the fastest humans to splash down in the Pacific, recovered by the USS John Murtha.
Artemis II returns to Earth with a Pacific splashdown, closing out the mission, while the morning briefing also covers a slate of other top headlines spanning geopolitics, politics, and social issues, including Hormuz oil traffic, a missing‑person case, and a Supreme Court ruling affecting an Ohio candidate.
NASA’s Artemis 2 crew—commander Reid Wiseman, pilot Victor Glover, and mission specialists Christina Koch and Jeremy Hansen—wrap up a 10-day lunar mission and are set to splash down off California. Live coverage begins at 6:30 p.m. EDT today, with splashdown expected around 8:07 p.m. EDT. The Orion capsule will reenter at up to ~24,000 mph, deploy parachutes, and be recovered by the USS John Murtha. Viewers can watch on Space.com, NASA channels, and via NASA streaming and other services (Netflix, Amazon Prime, etc.).
NASA outlined a precise timeline for Artemis II’s return: Orion will separate from the service module, re-enter at a carefully controlled angle, deploy parachutes, and splash down off the Southern California coast, followed by staged recovery operations and medical evaluations at Johnson Space Center.
As Artemis II returns to Earth after a nine‑day mission, the four astronauts—Reid Wiseman, Christina Koch, Victor Glover and Jeremy Hansen—are just beginning to grasp their voyage beyond the Moon, describing chills during the Earth-Moon eclipse, a 40‑minute radio blackout, and growing reflections on the mission’s significance as Orion’s test flight paves the way for future crewed lunar landings and a potential base; reentry and splashdown loom as the final milestone.
Four Artemis II astronauts are expected to splash down in the Pacific off San Diego, where the Navy’s 684-foot amphibious ship USS John P. Murtha will recover the capsule, stabilize it with airbags, and ferry the crew by helicopter to Naval Air Station North Island before their flight to Houston for a post-mission briefing.
During Artemis 2’s record‑breaking lunar flyby, the four astronauts shared an emotional moment as commander Reid Wiseman and his crewmates honored his late wife Carroll Wiseman by proposing Carroll Crater; Wiseman invited Jeremy Hansen to deliver the tribute while Christina Koch cried, calling it the mission’s pinnacle moment. The crew then completed the flyby of the Moon’s far side and witnessed a solar eclipse from lunar orbit before heading home for a Pacific splashdown on April 10. They also surfaced plans to name Integrity Crater after their Orion capsule, but both crater names must be approved by the International Astronomical Union before appearing on maps.
Artemis II’s return from its lunar mission will be a high-speed, multi-minute re-entry at over 11 km/s, with air temperatures near 10,000°C. The Orion capsule relies on an AVCOAT ablative heat shield and lift-assisted entry to keep g-forces manageable and maintain a safe descent, while a radio blackout occurs during peak heating. NASA tweaked the trajectory to avoid the “skip” risk seen in Artemis I, and the crew will splash down in the Pacific after a record 406,771 km from Earth.
Artemis II delivered striking lunar imagery and a unique human-perceived science dataset, but space-science experts say the short mission is unlikely to yield decadal-scale discoveries; its main value is public engagement and proving human-in-the-loop science, with substantive science expected from future crewed landings around 2028 as NASA refines instruments, mission operations, and target selection (e.g., Ohm crater) for future exploration.
Artemis II’s four astronauts wrap up final tests aboard the Orion capsule after a loop around the Moon, plan a news conference and another manual piloting pass before Friday’s reentry and splashdown off Southern California. NASA scientists are cataloging thousands of photos and video from the far-side daylight pass for new insights into the Moon's evolution; a toilet hiccup is the only notable issue on what is the first piloted Moon mission since the final Apollo landing in 1972.
NASA's Expedition 74 crew is prepping for the Cygnus XL cargo mission to the ISS, delivering advanced microgravity research tools that could revolutionize quantum computing, stem cell therapies, and astronaut health. The week includes Canadarm2 capture and installation training on the Unity module, spacesuit maintenance and battery swaps, plus international collaboration with Roscosmos and ESA tech demonstrations to push toward future deep-space exploration.
NASA’s Artemis 2 will launch four astronauts aboard the SLS/Orion for a 10-day loop around the Moon, marking the first crewed lunar flight in more than five decades. Following fixes to prior hydrogen leaks and a helium-flow issue, NASA declared go for a Wednesday launch window (6:24 p.m. ET, two hours); a Thursday 7:22 p.m. ET window is the backup. The test flight will validate SLS/Orion operations ahead of a 2028 crewed lunar landing.
NASA is shifting Artemis from a sprint to a system-based approach, prioritizing a long-term, repeatable human presence on the Moon with habitats, power systems, and surface infrastructure. The plan includes a 2027 in-orbit docking test with commercial lunar landers, a 2028 landing near the lunar south pole, pausing the lunar Gateway to focus on surface infrastructure, and expanding public-private partnerships to spread risk, lower costs, and develop technologies for Earth and Mars.