The Artemis-2 mission is a test mission of the Orion Space Capsule.
will be the first time we put humans on this rocket.
We're going back to the moon because it's the next step in our journey to Mars.
We were always going to the moon.
Pushing ourselves to explore is just a core to who we are. That's a part of being a human.
being a human.
We shall return.
Continuing to test out every bit of Orion.
Coming back to Earth seven miles, seven miles.
Humanity sets big goals.
We can bring together genius from around the world.
You have the best people on planet Earth putting this vehicle together.
To innovate for the benefit of humanity and to inspire the world to discover it.
Welcome to Artemis Mission Control here at Johnson Space Center in Houston, Texas.
I'm Leah Cheshire-Mustachio.
Right now, the Artemis-2 crew and Mission Control are preparing to support today's
lunar flyby the first time we've sent humans around the moon in over 50 years.
In integrity, you can use the OEs and your HHP camera for the milestone words at the Apollo 13 record distance.
You'll notice that we pause every time we hear communications to and from the crew. They are the stars for today.
This afternoon, the crew will have their closest approach of the moon and will surpass the record.
That record just mentioned of the furthest humans have ever flown, set by the Apollo 13 astronauts in 1970.
You're looking at a live view inside the Orion spacecraft and at our Artemis II crew members.
They have just completed their post-sleep period during which they conduct any hygiene
and cabin setup for the day.
They also had a chance to eat breakfast before we got into our daily planning conference.
The flight control team here in Mission Control Houston collecting information from
all consoles around the room that we could relay up to the crew ahead of this monumental day.
As you can see on your right NASA astronaut Christina Cook taking a video of NASA astronaut
Victor Glover. We expect to have great views of the crew throughout the day as well as of course
the Moon.
We expect to surpass that Apollo distance record in 55 minutes and 50 seconds.
We are now looking live at a camera mounted on one of the spacecraft's solar arrays,
pointed to our lunar neighbor.
We are currently just 14,200 miles away from the moon and 247,672 miles away from planet
Earth.
Houston integrity for AGA.
Houston Integrity for AGA.
Ready to copy.
Carbon dioxide 2.3, oxygen which has the alarm 26.3, 73.1 degrees, 10.3 PSI, and one follow
on question, we understand mouse gen words will be directly following the conference.
Will that take the place of the PAO event or will the PAO event still take place per
the timeline?
Good question, Christina, the milestone words that we exchange at the record distance at
the end of the conference will take the place of the PAO Timeline Activity, so that will
be our moment to talk about this occasion, and after that there will be no more expected
PAO words and you can get straight into your fly by copy all AGA.
Okay, thank you.
And final clarification, even though it's taken the place of it, it will all just be on OE 1 with HHP camera.
No additional video.
Is that right?
Affirm.
Okay. Thank you. Yep, so most had already heard that. Sorry about that. The second question.
We appreciate it. Talk to you soon. No problem.
Those communications between NASA astronaut Christina Cook
and Canadian Space Agency astronaut
and today's CAPCOM or capsule communicator,
the one person here speaking with the crew right now.
That is Jenny Gibbons.
She is an Artemis II backup crew member here
in Mission Control Houston.
We are now four days, 18 hours and 30 minutes
into the flight of Orion for Artemis II.
The Artemis II crew inside Orion lifted off atop the space launch system rocket
on Wednesday, April 1st from NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Florida.
Those four crew members are the first to live and work inside the Orion spacecraft,
which they have named integrity and have been busy conducting meticulously time-lined events.
It was a beautiful asset from Kennedy Space Center.
One of those early events was the Proximity Operations
Demonstration, during which NASA astronaut Victor Glover,
the Artemis II pilot, manually flew Orion after having just
detached from the interim cryogen propulsion stage
as if they intended to dock.
This was practiced for future Artemis missions,
during which astronauts in Orion will dock
with the lunar lander that will take them
to the surface of the moon.
About 24 hours after launch, 25 hours actually,
Orion then conducted TLI, the Translunar Injection Burn.
This 5-minute 50-second burn committed Orion to departing high Earth orbit and set us up
for today's flyby.
That Translunar Injection Burn also served as the spacecraft's deorbit burn.
It slingshots Orion around the Moon and sends the crew on a free return trajectory
with splashdown approximately 7.07 p.m. central on Friday, April 10.
Last night on Flight Day 5, the crew entered the lunar sphere of influence, the point
at which the pull of the moon's gravity will become stronger than the pull of Earth's.
We've also been getting some great views inside the cabin
of the crew members living daily life, from working out to eating, taking photos
and making memories together.
They've also been taking some beautiful views of our home planet and of the moon.
And we expect many, many more of those following today's activities.
These live views back inside the cabin of Orion, but before we get into fly by, let's
take a minute to get reacquainted with our crew.
Reed Wiseman is the Artemis II commander and a Baltimore native.
He's been in space once before.
I think there were going to be some families heading into the viewing room today.
If they and the showroom could use us to give us heads up when they're there so
we can just wait for them on the camper.
Absolutely.
And that was the voice of Reid Wiseman.
He has been in space once before as a flight engineer.
If they don't, you can just fly to us and tell us over there.
That'd be great.
Thank you.
We'll keep that in mind too.
And he'll be here.
Wiseman also has a great sense of humor.
He was aboard the International Space Station from May
through November 2014 as part of Expedition 41.
This was a 165-day mission during which he
and his crewmates completed more than 300 science experiments
in areas like human physiology, medicine, science,
earth science, and astrophysics.
They set a milestone for station science
by completing a record 82 research hours in a single week.
He also served as Chief of NASA's Astronaut Office
from December 2020 to November 2022,
and here on earth he has two daughters.
The Artemis II pilot is Victor Glover,
selected as an astronaut in 2013,
when at the time he was serving as a legislative fellow
in the United States Senate.
His first trip to space was in November 2020
when he launched as a pilot
of NASA's SpaceX Crew 1 mission.
That was the first operational mission
of NASA's commercial crew program
which resumed launching American rockets from American soil
to the International Space Station since the end
of the shuttle program.
Victor is a U.S. Navy captain and naval aviator
who served as a test pilot, racking up more
than 3,500 flight hours in more than 40 different aircraft.
He also became the first person to pilot Orion the other day
when we saw the crux ops demonstration shortly after launch.
He and his wife have four children.
Mission specialist Christina Cook is a native
of Grand Rapids, Michigan.
She was selected to the astronaut corps in 2013,
the same class as Victor Glover.
She served as flight engineer on the International Space Station
from March 2019 to February 2020.
During that time, Cook set a record
for the longest single spaceflight by a woman
with a total of 328 consecutive days in space.
She also participated in the first ever
all-female spacewalk with her friend and colleague,
Jessica Meir, now living and working aboard
the International Space Station yet again.
Before becoming an astronaut,
Christina helped build space science instruments
and led scientific field work
in some of the most remote environments on the planet.
Her hobbies include surfing, rock climbing, community service,
yoga, travel, and photography.
And she is certainly getting a chance to do that.
First time flyer, Canadian Space Agency astronaut Jeremy
Hansen is flying to the moon as a mission specialist
on the Artemis II mission.
The London Ontario native was selected as an astronaut
in 2009.
After that, he worked as Capcom at NASA's Mission
Control Center here in Houston.
Capcom stands for capsule communicator
and is the single direct voice communicating
with the astronauts in space.
He also participated in training exercises,
like living on the ocean floor off the coast of Florida
to simulate deep space exploration for seven days.
In 2017, he became the first Canadian
to lead a NASA astronaut class.
And he also enjoys getting out on a sailboat,
rock climbing, and mountain biking.
And he and his wife have three children.
As you can see, the crew members have dimmed the cabin lights inside Orion.
As they prepare for their lunar flyby, they'll be configuring the cabin as they'd like to have it
have it to allow for proper positioning as they move about to and from the windows taking
photos of the moon.
Dimming the lights also helps prevent reflections from inside Orion onto the windows.
Ahead of this lunar flyby, let's dive in and explain what you can expect over the
next several hours.
The crew has about six hours allotted to make observations about the moon.
Throughout the flyby, their activities have been precisely timelineed.
There are five blocks of time during which the crew will be observing the moon from Orion's windows.
At any time, two members will be at the windows working in a pair.
One crew member will be taking photos from window two with a blue shroud over the window.
This can help prevent that glare or reflection from inside Orion.
They have an 80 to 400 millimeter zoom lens to use.
The other astronaut will be in window three using their portable computing device.
that referred to as PCD to make annotations.
Both of these crew members will make audio recordings
of what they are seeing,
and they'll wear headsets connected to those PCDs.
Those audio recordings will be sent to the science team
at a later date.
We will not hear them live.
The two crew members at the windows will swap roles
and positions halfway through their timeline to block.
The other two crew members who won't be at the windows
at that time will be serving in the background as support.
One will be conducting the science set reps
or situation reports.
This is what we will hear live from the crew.
They'll be calling down a few times each hour
to discuss what they are observing.
Those situation reports include how the crew is positioned,
any missed targets, or anything unexpected they saw,
lunar target descriptions, any hardware issues,
and of course their emotions and reactions
as they fly by the moon.
The other support crew member will take pictures
of the astronauts at the windows
and serve as camera support,
providing new SD cards when needed.
There's a 15 minute timeframe between each observation block
during which the two support members switch places
with the crew making observations.
Two views, both coming from Orion.
They're on the left, the inside of the spacecraft, and on the right, a view of our moon, the
destination for today.
During the lunar flyby today Orion will provide astronauts with a full disc
view of the lunar surface. They'll have a higher vantage point much farther than
Apollo's lunar orbits on average. These astronauts can observe both the holes and large-scale
geologic features in a single view. And due to our April 1 launch date and current
illumination conditions, the RMS-2 astronauts have become the first humans to directly
observe certain far-side regions of the moon with unaided eyes.
Thank you.
You ready?
Thank you all.
We are now 36 minutes until we see the integrity crew past the Apollo 13 distance record and
joining me on console I have Julian Gross, the Artemis curation lead.
Thanks for joining me today.
Thanks for having me.
I'm very excited to be here.
We're very excited to have you.
So can you tell me about your role as Artemis curation lead and what that entails?
Yeah.
For the overall Artemis campaign,
I'm in the Artemis Lunar Sample Curation Lead.
I mean, I'm helping NASA to return the next set
of lunar samples from the lunar surface.
And for Artemis II specifically,
I'm one of the science team leads
and specifically I'm responsible
or the voice for impacts, poles, and landing sites.
Fascinating.
So what helped us select the targets
that the crew is going to be photographing today?
So we had a plan coming in
where we basically made a list of all the available targets
during the April launch window,
because before you launch,
we wouldn't exactly be sure
which targets would be visible.
And so once we launched,
we then were able to cut down on that list
and prioritize our targets.
And the five theme leads came together
and really discussed and collaborative,
talked through which,
which targets we could then, which targets we could then see and prioritize.
And so that made it into our plan.
We worked then with Timeline to make sure that all the targets are visible.
Some targets are time-dependent, like we're set or earth-rise.
And some targets will rotate out of view when integrity starts going around the moon.
And so we have, we put these in early so that the crew has a chance to describe those
to us. Fascinating. I cannot wait to hear what they have to say. So we just heard them
say that their long lens is configured. That's very exciting. And for us, when we look at
the moon from Earth, what features are we seeing that the crew will also fly by today?
Yeah, so I really hope that people on Earth who are in nighttime will look up into
the moon tonight. The features that the crew will see that we can also currently
see is Ars Tarkis Plateau. Grimaldi is another feature. They're going to be sort of on RLM
and then Oceana's Prokolarum, that really dark, large area on the other side that we can see.
The crew is going to see that in the beginning. The more they fly around, the less of that
they will see. So those are targets we will hear them describe early on in the fly by.
Fascinating. Well, and the crew has been training for years for this day,
And so we're going to hear them make a lot of calls about what they are seeing on the moon,
and they're going to use a lot of interesting terms that I myself need some brushing up on.
So could you walk us through a few of the things that we'll hear them use to describe the moon,
like albedo, exosphere, ejecta, just some of those major terms we expect to hear from the crew?
Yeah, of course. Albedo is basically a term of a reflectiveness of the surface. And so
So high albedo usually for the moon means bright areas and low albedo means like darker
areas.
And so when you look into the night sky you can see that the high albedo areas are the
white parts and the low albedo ones are the darker areas.
Ejecta is when you have an impact and it ejects or throws out material that then
ends up on the surface and you can see that as sort of rays or ray systems.
So you might hear them describe, oh I can see, ohm for example with its rays
It has an esometric race coming out and so we're excited to hear them describe that.
You might hopefully hear stuff about color or color hues and so if there's can see any changes
in those color hues from like white to gray to maybe brownish we're excited to be here about that.
Axosphere is the almost no existing atmosphere of the moon. It's barely there
But there is dust on the lunar surface that can get lofted up through electrostatic forces.
And when the sun goes behind the moon, it can scatter forward on those dust particles
and sort of like create a little glow on the horizon.
And so we're really excited to see if the crew can actually see that.
This is so exciting. Thank you so much for walking through all of that with us.
Julianne Gross, Artemis Curation Lead.
We really appreciate you joining us here today and good luck to your team.
Thank you, I'm really excited to be here.
We are now MET four days, 18 hours and 49 minutes into the flight of Orion.
This view of the moon from the Orion spacecraft as we get closer and closer.
We're live here in Artemis Mission Control at Johnson Space Center
in Houston, Texas just about 32 minutes away until the crew surpasses the record set by Apollo 13
as the farthest astronauts to ever leave Earth.
This view coming from a camera mounted on the tip of one of Orion's four solar arrays.
Each array has a camera on its tip, and so we anticipate getting views throughout the lunar
flyby. Of course, except during the point of loss of signal when spacecraft flies behind the
the moon. Inside the cabin the crew are configuring the inside of Orion for
today's flyby making sure they have everything and just where they want it
to help them take the pictures that they are aiming for for the science team
here on the ground. Coming up in just a few minutes we will have a pre-Lunar
During that Lunar Flyby Science Crew Conference, our science officer here on console, Kelsey
Young, will be speaking directly with the crew members about their targets, about their
goals for today, what they expect to see and what we are hoping to hear from them.
We have a lot of milestones coming up today, so make sure you don't miss them.
The first coming up again at 1.56 p.m. Eastern time, the crew will pass the distance from
Earth records set by Apollo 13 in 1970. At 2.45 p.m. lunar flyby officially begins. The crew
will have that time on their schedules to begin photographing and providing audio recordings
of what they are seeing on the moon. At 7.02 p.m. Orion will make its closest approach
to the moon approximately 4,070 miles away. Of course all of these numbers are going to have
to be confirmed following the flyby. These are estimates and we are working with orbital
Mechanics. At 7.07 p.m. Orion reaches its maximum distance from Earth approximately 252,760 miles away
from us all. At 8.35 p.m. the spacecraft will enter a solar eclipse. The crew will become the first
to see a solar eclipse from the moon.
Ahead of the official beginning of flyby today,
Kelsey Young, Artemis Science Flight Operations Lead,
will be conducting a pre-lunar flyby crew conference.
She will give information on camera setup,
remind the crew of their intended targets,
answer questions from the astronauts, and more.
Young will help the crew set their targeting timeline,
which counts down the time they have to image each target
and what they'll be capturing next.
She'll also remind them that the ground team will be
calling for science sit reps, also known as situation reports, those are
essentially call downs to report what they've been observing. They'll continue
to do this even through their LOS, their loss of signal, as those communications
will come down later on after they reconnect with us on Earth.
This view in the cabin, you can see the crew members are already using their cameras getting
set up and they have dimmed the cabin lights to allow them better visibility outside of
the windows and fewer reflections.
Now 28 minutes until they become the humans to travel farthest from our planet.
Houston integrity, we are ready for the conference on your call.
Houston is ready for the conference, passing you over to science.
Good morning crew, this is science.
We couldn't be more excited for a full day of lunar
and planetary observations today, the first one
in over 54 years.
How do you hear me?
We hear you loud and clear and Kelsey,
you just got to know you're pulling us away
from the moon right now, so let's go.
Message received. I will keep it tight here. I did just want to start with a thank you on behalf of the Lunar Science Team
and the entire Lunar and Planetary Science community of which you are absolutely a part for what you've already done in this mission
and what you're going to do today to inspire the next generation of scientists. I have to say Moonjoy is the new term
that's already become our team's new motto, so thanks for that.
In this conference we'll cover hardware and config reminders, and then I'll just briefly, as you said, cover today's science plan.
I'm assuming you already have your LTPs up, confirm that, and I'll jump quickly into the
cabin config reminders.
Okay, we have the LTP up just to give you a sit-rep on board.
You've got Reed and Christina on one PCD, and I guess his own, and Jeremy has his own.
Copy that. That was going to be one of my questions for you and I'll ask a question
back. Is that the config that you and Christina plan to carry throughout the day for PCD use?
Negative Calci, our plan for PCD use is we have run the power cables to Windows 2 and
And we are going to leave one PCD, the yellow PCD will be in window two, and the green PCD will be in window three, and we will do that the whole day.
And then the red PCD will be a rover.
Understood. Super helpful.
I recommend when you guys switch in and out of PCDs to add your initials to your one note annotations, just so we can keep track of who this is who.
And then given that you have three PCDs instead of four
for the data transfer at the end of the day,
recommend making a new sub-directory
if it's entitled for science for your own photos
or with your initials that we can keep track
of which pictures came from which Bosch cards.
So, Kelsey, I just want to just do the, here's what we're doing, we have community cards
in all cameras on board and then when each astronaut approaches their camera, the intent
is they will put their card into that camera for photos and then put the community card
back in at the end of the session.
But just now it is harder to manage cards than we thought and we don't want them in science,
so it might end up a bit more disorganized.
Understood. Thanks for that essay. Just read the flash card numbers down when you get a chance
and we'll follow your lead on the best thing to do operationally during the flyby.
With that, I'll move on to Windows.
So the window characterization DFTO you guys did a few days ago
Confirm that window 2 is ideal for imaging, so no change to config a photographer in window 2, observer in window 3, and science at reps in window 1.
Coming up on the handover.
The way we have it configured, tell us if this is going to be wrong.
Window 2 is the long lens with a shroud.
As you heard, science officer called to the crew.
We are now in a handover time period.
We will regain communications with the crew very shortly.
These are tracked and we are currently
on the deep space network.
This is the first time humans have used the deep space network
in over 50 years given that we currently use the tracking data
relay satellite systems in the,
for the International Space Station.
This view from Artemis Mission Control on the right is Kelsey Young.
That's who you hear speaking with the crew.
Young is the Artemis Science Flight Operations Lead and we also look forward
to speaking with her here today.
Again, we are just about 22 minutes until we reach the Apollo record.
We are in a handover of satellites with the crew aboard Orion.
The T-shirt shroud for the Z-9 and solar and then window three will be for visual observations
and window four is for floater.
And thanks.
And thanks integrity for that read.
We had a handover during that time so I'm going to have to ask you to give that read
back on window orientation for the crew again.
Okay, we are happy to change it, but the way we have it
configured right now is window one has a t-shirt shroud for
the Z9 for solar, window two has the shroud for the long
lens for both lunar and solar, window three is for visual
observations, window four is for floater, and then the
Docking Hatch window has had a great view so we've done a
a lot of mapping through that as well.
All right, copy all read.
A note just on the window one, t-shirt shroud
that you can remove that for the lunar observation block
if you want to, if you want that extra view
for another floater, but for you guys on that.
You are go to use the full 400 millimeter zoom
on the long lens, but where possible,
try to keep the end of the lens flush
with the window to prevent imaging
through the multiple window panes at an angle.
And if you have to take an image at an angle,
recommend you limit the max focal length to 200 millimeters
or simply acquire the images at multiple focal lengths.
Last imaging update as a result of the DFTO
is that if you can take the images
out at the left side of window two where possible,
that is the best half the window,
understand that might not be possible with the shroud.
Any other imaging questions from you?
Okay, happy that.
Okay, last couple of reminders.
Don't forget the ability to take the WAVE files
to tag imagery that you are wanting to follow up on
using the FN3 button on your camera,
and then a couple quick notes on your LTP.
We have refined your precise flyby timing
since generating the LTP.
Optimus has the correct timing for the LOS and AOS,
but the LTP identifiers for LOS and AOS
are roughly two minutes later than they will be in reality.
Final LTP timing update is that the green line
on your LTP should start automatically
45 minutes before the flyby.
If it doesn't appear, let me know
and I'll have troubleshooting steps for you.
Last updates are on the eclipse,
so only for that last hour today.
Of course, remember if the sun is in view
to use your eclipse glasses,
and reminder that we will have a few activities for you
prior to the eclipse to reconfigure all three cameras for corona and deep sky observations.
These activities, some of which will occur during the forward link LOS,
so we wanted to flag it for you now. Any questions before I cover the last two reminders?
No, we have no questions on that.
Last couple eclipse reminders, the sunset period
and the first roughly 23 minutes of the eclipse will fall
during that forward link, LOS, but we'll still have a return link
and we're still looking forward to your science
at reps and observations during that time.
And I do have reminder for you on your preferred starting config
for the eclipse in terms of role responsibility.
Let me know if you want me to read that up or if you guys have
that in your minds already and if no other questions on config I'll give you a few science
focused reminders.
Give us a quick high level, but we see it in optimus, and I think we got a score anyway.
But give us your quick, Kelsey, high level.
Okay. A couple changes from the first LTP you studied are that is that Glushko is the only feature
that the same pair will be tight twice. That's Reed and Jeremy. That's why that's the only target
you see that is marked as one of one and two, one of two and two of two. So Omen Oriental are
in there twice, but they're by different pairs, which is why you don't see them marked accordingly.
A note from feedback on your observations so far over the last couple days, a reminder
that if you note structure and texture as well as color and albedo, please note any correlation
between the two, and also a reminder that negative observations are still valuable science.
So a lack of color or a lack of structure associated with color is also valuable.
A reminder also that your observations so far indicate
it will likely take some time for your eyes to adjust.
We especially heard that around your terminator observations
and your color observations.
So a reminder to know that your eye adaptation
is gonna kind of come in throughout your shift
and let us know when you start to see that nuance.
Last reminder is around earth set and earth rise.
When you're viewing us back here at home,
you'll be looking directly at Asia, Africa, and Oceania.
So I'm sure people watching from those places here on Earth
will want to give you all a wave
as you take their picture.
Any other questions from me?
For me.
And Kelsey, hey, when you're talking window 2 left and right side, just can you say towards
window 1 or towards window 3 and then we'll know that we are talking the same language?
Absolutely. So I mean that the side of window 2 closest to window 3 is preferred for imaging.
Okay. The side of window 2 closest to window 3 is preferred for recording. Stand by. We'll talk to the group.
Again, we are in our pre-lunar fly-by science conference
with Kelsey Young.
Kelsey Young is the Artemis Science Flight Operations Lead,
speaking with the crew aboard Orion.
They've been training for this moment for years,
and this is their last opportunity
to get some further pointers and information.
Before the T-shirt shroud, what window does the science team think will have the best view?
Is it window one or window four?
The only time we're strongly recommending use of the windows.
The window, the T-shirt window shop for the clips viewing, which window is primary for a C9?
Window 1.
Okay, awesome. So we have got that all set up.
Just to be 100 percent sure, window one is the most port window by the food warmer.
Window two is right in front of seat one.
Window three is right in front of seat two.
And window four is on the starboard side by the side hatch.
Do you agree with all that?
We agree on the ground.
Good read back.
Okay, that's awesome.
Kelsey, we're going to close with happy words.
It's just incredible.
I wish you were up here to see all the smiley faces.
to hear all these terminology being thrown around and we are just fired up to get started
on this day.
Let me pass them around if anybody has anything to add.
Kelsey, it's so great to hear your voice on the loop.
I just want to channel everything that you guys are probably feeling right through my
eyes and heart.
It is awesome to see the side of the moon.
You guys made us excited for this day and we couldn't appreciate it anymore and we
We are ready to hopefully deliver on all the awesome training you guys have provided.
How does that, Kelsey?
It is blowing my mind what you can see with the Naked Eye Fundament right now.
It's just unbelievable.
Kelsey and to the whole Lunar Science team, all of you, all the work you put into this,
we're just grateful.
Can't wait to get going.
And thank you for the tipper, for Carol Crater, and for Integrity.
can see them and we've damaged them and can even see with the naked eye.
Quite impressive. Thank you so much.
Beautiful words you guys. Thanks so much and I got video of the science team right now and
they are all absolutely buzzing. Looking forward to today.
Okay we're heading into the timeline. Cheers guys.
of the Pre-Lunar Flyby Science Conference with Dr. Kelsey Young.
Young has served as the Artemis Science Flight Operations League, getting the crew ready.
And we're live in Artemis, Michigan, in Houston, but we are not the only room monitoring today's flyby.
live eye as you heard young mention in this same building and just down the
hall a multidisciplinary lunar science team supports the Artemis II crew in real
time including experts in lunar geology impact cratering, volcanism, polar
science, imaging and visualization. There are two integrated facilities and
the first is the SIR which is what you have right here that's the science
evaluation room they are embedded within mission control to provide
science input during live operations like what we see today. Additionally and
not pictured, we have the Science Mission Operations Room, a back room that processes
data, evaluates imagery and supports rapid analysis. Our Science Officer on Consul and
Mission Control Houston serves as the primary interface between the science team and the
flight controllers, ensuring science priorities are represented during mission execution.
Again, today that's Dr. Kelsey Young, who will be speaking with the crew during the
time they're behind the moon. We will be speaking with her once the crew is
behind the moon and out of communication with Earth.
Back inside the Orion spacecraft on your left, closest to the camera, NASA astronaut Christina
Cook.
To her left, NASA astronaut Reed Wiseman.
To his left, Canadian Space Agency astronaut Jeremy Hansen.
And all the way in the back, NASA astronaut Victor Glover.
Our Artemis 2 crew.
We are now approaching eight minutes until the crew surpasses the Apollo 13 record.
Currently 12,599 miles away from the Moon, 248,507 miles away from Earth.
We, you know, you may also hear the Orion spacecraft referred to today as Integrity.
This was named by the Artemis II crew.
It is.
Integrity crew, we have Reid's family in the viewing gallery.
You're welcome to say hello.
Well, whether you're being serious
or you're getting around,
that is awesome to hear.
Thanks, Jenny.
And hello to Ellie and Katie.
I don't know who else is in here,
but it's great to know that you're in mission control
right now, following along
where you're having a blast up here
in the view of the moon is absolutely amazing.
I'm seeing a lot of hearts come out of the viewing gallery, and even more smiles.
Thanks, Rhys.
Copy heart. Copy bracelet.
That call from Capcom, Jenny Gibbons, Canadian Space Agency astronaut and Artemis II backup
crew member, letting Reid Wiseman know that he has family here to support him today in
the Artemis Mission Control viewing room.
As I was mentioning, we have the Orion spacecraft flying today, however the Artemis crew members
named their Orion spacecraft Integrity, so you will hear calls
to this entire crew with the name Integrity.
They say that the name Integrity embodies the foundation
of trust, respect, candor, and humility across the crew,
and the many engineers, technicians, scientists,
planners, and dreamers required for mission success.
This view live from the outside of Orion as we continue, preparing for our lunar flyby
now less than five minutes from surpassing the records set by Apollo 13 astronauts for
the farthest humans to travel from Earth.
This will not be the farthest that integrity travels today.
They will continue until they reach approximately a distance of 252,760 miles, that would be
about 4,105 miles farther than Apollo 13.
However, these numbers are our targets, and we will get confirmation on those numbers
as soon as we possibly can and share them with you all.
We talked a little bit about what to expect from the crew, whether that's taking photos
or making audio recordings, to get a little more detailed.
Reed Wiseman and Jeremy Hansen will be up first to capture imagery and record audio
on the portable computing devices.
You hear those referred to as PCDs, while Victor and Christina serve as the support members.
The crew will switch windows and rolls halfway through their shift, and one hour and five
minutes later, Victor Glover and Christina Cook will be the next crew members at Windows
2 and 3 to take photos and make annotations while Reid and Jeremy take on those support
rolls.
There are five viewing blocks, and the crew will swap out with each one.
During two of the blocks, the two support members will also be able to enjoy their
midday meal.
At least three times per block is a science set rep.
Again, situational report.
This is partially an operational status reporting back
if they missed any targets or gotten any specific ones.
If they have issues with their camera
or any other operational items,
the other part is an actual description of the moon.
This task is done by one of the support team astronauts.
So that's not the crew currently taking photos or making annotations,
but they do have windows 1 and 4 that they can float up
and provide that information from.
If you watch the entirety of the flyby, you'll also notice the crew will be
photographing some targets multiple times to get observations
in different lighting conditions.
This is due to Orion changing their location throughout the flyby.
What this crew will be able to capture in a couple of hours of the same targets
in different lighting would take orbiters years to do because of solar
and spacecraft positioning.
This crew has studied the moon extensively and they're also familiar
with what the science team calls the Big 15.
These are 15 features that they've memorized so at any time they'll be able
to see five of those and help orient themselves and where they are around the moon.
Those targets are diverse and complex in the geologic history,
and observations of them could help answer some big picture science questions.
If you've been following the mission, you can see that the configuration of the cabin
is a little bit different than what it looked like on launch day.
After Ascent, the crew were allowed to reconfigure their spacecraft.
You can see that they've taken down seats.
They have also taken away foot rests.
This gives them more opportunity to move about the spacecraft.
Orion itself has 330 cubic feet of habitable volume that's about the size of two mini-vans
and is 60 percent more cubic volume than the Apollo spacecraft.
We are standing by for the integrity crew aboard Orion to surpass the Apollo 13 record.
Integrity Crew, on April 15, 1970, during the Apollo 13 mission, three explorers set the
record for the farthest distance humans have ever traveled from our home planet. At that
time, over 55 years ago, Lovell, Swigert, and Hayes flew 248,655 statute miles away from
Earth. Today, for all humanity, you're pushing beyond that frontier. Integrity, over to
you.
Yeah, from the cabin of integrity here as we surpass the furthest distance humans have
ever traveled from planet Earth, we do so in honoring the extraordinary efforts and
of our predecessors in human space exploration.
We will continue our journey even further into space before Mother Earth succeeds
in pulling us back to everything that we hold dear.
But we most importantly choose this moment to challenge this generation and in the next
to make sure this record is not long lived.
Thank you, integrity, and congratulations to you and the rest of the Artemis II team.
Thank you, so we have a couple more things we'd like to take this moment for.
Our science team helped us out with a couple of relatively fresh craters on the moon
have not been previously named and our crew would like
to propose a couple of potential names for those items
or those areas and we spent a bit of time this morning looking
up the window and we're able to see them now both
with our naked eye and through the long lens
and so we feel this is a good time to send this down
in a special showdown to Kelsey
for helping us with this.
The first one we'd like to suggest is a named crater
in honor of our great spacecraft integrity.
And so, if you were to look at the oriental on the far side
and then draw a line straight up to OAM on the far side,
relatively in the middle is an unnamed crater.
And we would like to suggest it be called integrity
in the future.
Next second.
And the second one, and especially meaningful
for this crew, is a number of years ago we started this
and our close-knit astronaut family, and we lost a loved one.
And there's a feature in a really neat place on the moon,
and it is on the near side, far side boundary.
In fact, it's just on the near side of that boundary.
And so at certain times of the moon's transit around Earth,
we will be able to see this from Earth.
And so we lost a loved one.
one, her name is Carol, the explosive reed, the mother of Katie and Ellie.
And if you want to find this one, you look at Glushko, and it's just to the northwest
of that, at the same latitude as home, and it's a bright spot on the moon.
We would like to call it Carol and you spell that C-A-R-R-O-L-L.
Thank you.
Integrity and Carol Crater.
Loud and clear.
Thank you.
As the Artemis II crew passed the record set by Apollo 13 for the farthest humans
to ever fly from Earth at 12.57 p.m. Central Time, 1.57 p.m. Eastern Time.
and space agency astronaut Jeremy Hansen.
We're getting ourselves all put back together now
and we are going to dim the cabin lights
and prepare for our science objectives ahead.
Thank you.
Sounds good, we're doing the same down here
and you're maneuvering to your observation attitude.
As we pass that Apollo 13 record
of the furthest humans to ever fly from Earth
At 1257 p.m. Central Time, 157 p.m. Eastern Time,
the Artemis II crew shared some poignant words,
specifically Canadian Space Agency astronaut Jeremy Hansen.
The crew also called down two craters,
not yet named, that they would like to name.
One, integrity in honor of their spacecraft,
which they have named.
That's near the Olm crater.
Another near Glushko, which is a bright spot,
named Carol in memory of Reed Wiseman's wife.
There was a moment of silence here in Mission Control, Houston.
And now the team and the Artemis II crew
are ready to begin their lunar flyby.
We are four days, 19 hours, 31 minutes, mission elapsed time of the flight of Artemis-2,
our four astronauts aboard Orion.
Today is our Lunar Flyby Day.
The spacecraft is currently about 12,000 miles away from the Moon, and you can keep up with
the distance from Orion to the Moon and Earth by visiting nasa.gov slash track Artemis.
Or you can just stay with us here because we're going to be telling you throughout the
day.
currently 248,834 miles away from planet Earth.
Coming up next on the cruise timeline today will be their cabin configuration portion.
heard some calls down to science officer Dr. Kelsey Young earlier about how they have configured
the cabin so far. This is just a little bit more of timeline activity for them if they need to
further do so. On flight day three the crew had time on their schedule allotted for configuring
the spacecraft cabin for how they intended to arrange it today. Of course they had to
take down that configuration for another test yesterday of their Orion crew survival
system suits, but configuring it on Flight A3 allows them the opportunity to get a chance
to see what works for them now that they are in the microgravity environment.
Again, the crew is about to begin their cabin configuration portion of their timeline, though
they have been working that already, as well as potentially during their post-sleep period
this morning.
The official lunar flyby observations are slated to begin in just about 40 minutes.
That's when we'll have the crew at the windows, photographing the moon, as well
as well as making calls down about what they are seeing.
Again, we are live here in Artemis Mission Control for the duration of the flyby.
Currently, the Orbit One flight control team is on console.
This room is staffed 24-7 from the time before the astronauts stepped foot on the rocket
until the time they are splashed down and are safely recovered in the Pacific Ocean on Flight Day 10.
Again, this is Artemis.
Mission Control here in Houston.
We are now 11,777 miles away from the moon.
We did pass the Apollo 13 record of farthest humans away
from Earth at 1257 p.m. central time, 157 p.m. eastern time.
That distance, 248,655 statute miles from the Earth continuing
to be exceeded by the crew.
They will reach their farthest distance
from the Earth around 6.07 p.m. central time.
At that time, they will be in an LOS or a loss of signal
with us on Earth as they'll be flying behind the moon.
As the crew gets into their cabin configuration preparations,
we are joined by Dr. Sarah Noble, the Artemis Lunar Science Lead.
Thanks for joining us here today.
Yeah, it's quite a day.
Yeah, we are very excited.
I can only imagine how you guys are doing over there.
So tell me a little bit about yourself and what your role is for Artemis too.
Sure.
So I'm the Artemis Lunar Science Lead.
so over the entire campaign and my job is basically to make sure that as we have this
big adventure back to the moon we actually learn new things about the moon.
Fascinating. So why is the moon such an important destination today?
Yeah so the moon is a pretty amazing place. It is a great place to learn about
basic fundamental processes that happen on like all the planets like cratering and
volcanology and also it is you know part of our earth moon system and you know the earth
recycles it's rocks pretty well right through plate tectonics and weathering
or whatever most of the rocks on the earth are geologically young but on the
moon we have the entire record that goes back four and a half billion years
until since we formed and so if we really want to learn about what was
happening in that period like moon is really the only place we can go. We're
also thinking about going back to the moon we want to go to the lunar
south pole so what makes that such an interesting destination? Yeah the
South Pole is cool, right? It's far away from the places we went during Apollo. It's different
kinds of rocks. They're some of the oldest rocks on the moon. It's also a place where we think
there might be resources like water. There are craters that really never can see the sun because
the low sun angles there and they get very cold. And we think that water and other things can
build up in those craters and so we're very interested to see what that might do for us.
I'm very interested as well. So for some of our viewers who might be new to this, what
What does lunar science look like during an Artemis mission?
Yeah, it's pretty exciting for us
as we built this from scratch to try
to understand how we can best use the crew to support
our science.
And so we've developed a system.
We've got a team in place.
We've got a back room here here in this building called
the SIR, the Science Evaluation Room.
And there's a back room to that back room
over in another building here at Johnson Space Center,
where we've got our teams of scientists working really
hard.
They're actually speaking to this room
through our science officer, this is now the first time
we've ever had a science officer in flight control room.
So we're pretty excited about that.
So we have a really voice out and up to the crew.
I know it's been so exciting to hear Dr. Kelsey Young
speaking directly with the crew today now.
So close to the moon and we have a live view here
of the science operation or the science evaluation room.
So this is where the majority of your team
is today, is that right?
Yeah, that's right.
This is a big chunk of our scientists.
You can see them and they're now working hard
trying to get ready for the day.
And then again, there's a second room
where we have a lot of our data folks
where the data will first come down
and then sort of sift through the data
and get ready for this team to take.
What's the mood like right now in this, sir?
It is, I would say giddy.
I think we're all, we've worked very hard for this.
They have done simulation after simulation.
They have worked really hard
over the last couple of years
to get ready for this moment.
And I think everybody's just really excited
to see, you know, even already,
we've had some descriptions from the crew coming down.
It's so great to see their joy and on our joy our love for the moon come through yes
We are in for a real treat today
If it's been anything like their observations the past couple of days
So how are the lunar science teams using this test flight to prepare for future missions to the moon?
Yeah, absolutely. This is the way that we are building our foundation for the future from everything from
You know, how do you train a crew to be a geologist?
Right and so you know working through that getting them a classroom training field training
building the science team, building these physical rooms that we are in,
designing them, designing software that the teams are using, and then you know
figuring out what happens to that data, they're going to take this data and it's
going to come down and how do we get it out to not only our team but out to the
world and the rest of the science community. Yeah that's a great point
because when you hear these crew members talk you would never know that
they're not geologists. Your team has trained them so well. They have been
very good students. Who can blame them? It's a pretty great topic. One
One more question for you.
How does the science that we're doing on Artemis help support long-term exploration and including
our sustained presence on the moon?
Yeah, you know what?
We have a saying in the Science Mission Directorate that science enables exploration and exploration
enables science, right?
So you need the scientists because we are the ones who are the experts in landing site
and doing analysis of landing site and making sure we can find a good place to land
to understanding the properties of the soil so we can design our systems to manage
understanding the radiation environment, keeping our astronauts safe, all of these things, right?
But, you know, in return, you provide us with opportunities where now we're going to be able
to collect this data and collect samples and play our instruments and all of that.
So it's a symbiotic relationship.
That makes perfect sense. Well, Dr. Sara Noble, Artemis Lunar Science Lead.
Thank you so much for joining us here today. Best of luck to you and your team,
and I hope that you get to enjoy today too.
Thank you so much.
We are now getting closer and closer to our lunar neighbor, this live view coming from
the Orion spacecraft and a camera mounted on one of its solar array wings.
you
Houston Integrity for Camera Serial Numbers.
Ready to copy.
Hey, Jenny, these are card numbers for the various positions.
For the long lens on the D5, we will have individual cards.
Victor's, 1008, Jeremy,
Victor's, 1008, Jeremy, 1019, Reed, 1012, myself, 1015.
For the Z-9, we will have one card that is dedicated for today, serial number 1007.
For the cabin camera D5, we will have one dedicated card for today,
so you're number 1022.
All right, Christina, we copy all.
Thank you.
We just realized that we have Earth not window 1 and Moon not window 2 and we were out, sorry,
Earth not window 4 and Moon not window 3 and it gives you the best idea of scale we have
had yet.
The Moon is about three to four times the size of the Earth and it is almost full in
the Earth.
It's just a small crescent out there.
It's magnificent, I got a picture of it with the wide lens, it's such a majestic view out here.
Amaze, amaze, amaze, thank you, Reed.
Those are some of the communications we're excited most about today.
Commander Reed Wiseman calling down their view right now.
Obviously, a little bit different than what we can see from the solar array camera.
They are looking through the windows of the Orion spacecraft, able to see at the same
time Earth and the Moon.
You also heard NASA astronaut Christina Cook calling down some of the cameras that they
will be using today.
The crew is in that cabin configuration portion and we expect the Lunar Flyby Observation
period to start in just about 20 minutes.
in on Orion's distance and speed. They are currently traveling 1,071 miles per hour,
249,159 miles away from Earth, 11,293 miles away from the Moon and continuing to grow closer.
At closest approach to the Moon today, the spacecraft will be just about 4,070 miles away
from the lunar surface. This will be during our loss of signal with the crew as they travel behind
the moon and we will await their return to get the official number for you for how close they come
to our lunar neighbor.
Inside the cabin today, the lunar targeting package is the primary tool guiding the crew
observations and consists of two key components.
The lunar geography review helped the astronauts study major lunar features in advance and
help learn how to orient themselves during the flyby because of course the moon is not actually
labeled like it appears here when we look at this map. The lunar targeting plan provides a detailed
timeline of observation targets, background science context, and specific instructions
for the pictures the crew should take as well as the verbal descriptions that will be helped
fold to the science team reviewing them later. This is a screenshot from their lunar
targeting package, and a screenshot specifically of that lunar.
Hey Jenny, understanding we are in final attitude now for the Lunar Flyby, would it be possible
to pitch the vehicle down five degrees.
That would allow us to get the D5 long lens flush
and have the least amount of window distortion.
We're checking.
That call from Christina Cook, NASA Astronaut
and Mission Specialist on Artemis 2.
Copy. The Orion spacecraft is positioned
in a specific attitude to allow the crew to best see the moon
outside of their windows today for this imaging opportunity.
That call was a request for a potential attitude shift just
slightly, another five degrees, to give them a better view
and to give them a better opportunity
to use their long lens camera.
They'll also be using that lunar targeting package
we were discussing.
I am following along with that real time, so I'll be able
to share with you exactly what targets the crew is looking at and when.
They also trained with a lunar science passport.
It's a little reference guide used on Earth to reinforce recognition
of key lunar features.
It is not on the flight, but it was a significant study tool
for the crew to get them ready for launch.
The apparent size of the moon will change throughout the flyby,
and it'll appear roughly like a basketball held
at arm's length at the crew's closest approach.
That reinforces the need for careful planning and practiced observation techniques.
Thanks.
Houston Integrity for Timeline.
Go ahead.
Houston Integrity for Timeline.
Go ahead.
Hey Jenny, just to make absolutely sure that we start observations when expected,
we are showing an optimist that observation time starts in about 15 minutes
minutes and an LTP that our first target, Discussion 1, starts in about 29 minutes.
Can you confirm you'd like us to start Discussion 1 in 29 minutes at 1900 GMT?
Christina, we are tracking that discussion one should start at 1845, that's 15 minutes
from now.
Okay, copy all, it may be a granularity issue with LTP, but understand that we start that
observation in 15 minutes and I bet when we get there the green line in LTP will match
the start of the white band for discussion one.
I think it's just a matter of the labeling and the granularity.
Thanks for confirming.
Copy, and we'll look into that a little bit more on our side as well.
Christina, can you verify for us that your green line is moving on the timeline page of your LTP?
Jenny, I do think we're good looking closer.
I see the labels are just not aligned with the starter end times of the white visible bands.
It fully makes sense now, so I think we are all set.
We'll look forward to starting some observations in about 13 minutes.
minutes.
Copy, thanks Christina.
As you heard discussed, we are expecting the crew's observation time period to start in
about 10 minutes.
First, they'll be conducting a warm-up, warming up to their science observations of the moon.
They'll be discussing with each other, helping each other orient using the major landmarks
that they've studied.
I'm asking, what is familiar?
If we roll left, port 5 degrees, that would get the moon closer to the left side of window
2.
Copy, Victor.
Copy Victor, we'd like to know if it's pitch and roll or one or the other.
Jenny, we actually thought you already put the pitch in.
Have the pitch been put in already?
No, we need a little while longer to talk about it.
So Jenny, I guess what's happening is just
as our orbit's changing, where it is and the window is changing.
So maybe these fancy little adjustments
or is the spacecraft going to keep the moon at the same point
of the window if we adjust the attitude?
I assume the previous.
Right now, we are pointing the center of the window
to the center of the moon with two degrees of dead band.
Right now, we are pointing the center of the window to the center of the moon with two
degrees of dead band.
The conversation you hear happening now between the astronauts aboard Orion and Artemis Mission
Control here at Johnson Space Center in Houston, Texas. They're in the center of your screen
seated at the CAPCOM or capsule communicator console. That's Ginny Gibbons, Canadian Space
Agency astronaut and Artemis II backup. She was also the lead CAPCOM for Expedition 63 aboard the
International Space Station.
The crew is requesting some attitude changes to the spacecraft to allow them to better image the moon, our priority for today.
Of course, those have to be discussed on the ground before they are put into work aboard the spacecraft, so the team is taking some time to do so.
You also heard Giddens' reference that we are into dead bands.
Dead bands are essentially keeping us in the lane
in which we're traveling.
If you're familiar with lane assist
in your car, very similar in this case.
We are now 10,870 miles away from the Moon, traveling 1,066 miles per hour and 249,390
miles away from Earth.
Again, we recently surpassed the Apollo 13 distance record of farthest humans have ever
traveled and upon calling down some words during that milestone, Canadian Space Agency
astronaut Jeremy Hansen noting that he hopes that this record that they are setting today
is soon broken by future explorers.
This is Artemis Mission Control.
we are standing by for the beginning of Lunar Flyby.
Expecting that to start in just a few minutes
when the crew will begin a warm-up discussion preparing
for the day.
They will be capturing images along
while discussing what they find familiar about the moon
and what looks unexpected to them.
Again, just minutes away from the official start of Lunar Flyby or when it is timelineed
for the crew.
We are currently 10,726 miles away from the moon.
This view on the left side of your screen coming from the camera
on one of Orion's solar arrays.
Other conversation points while the crew are getting ready for their flyby today.
They'll be looking to orient themselves using major landmarks and annotating their observations
along with their discussion.
They'll have 10 minutes for that warm-up discussion.
We have two folks at the window, deep in discussion, talking to the other folks, and we have two
and deep in discussion talking about all of the awesome features that they're seeing.
We just had a huge moment realizing that Hertzsprung is about the same size as our incredible Oriental.
We're really excited about this target that's kind of new to us.
We're orienting on things like how we talk about Albedo, finding some of the prevalent things
that we're used to from all of our training and just overall taking in this view.
We also are noticing that the moon is still getting noticeably bigger as we go.
Even when you're watching it continuously, it's great to see these two guys get warmed up.
We love the report, Christina.
Thanks. And you nailed it on why we added Hertzsprung as you'll see in the prompts.
We're looking for comparisons to the comparatively much older Hertzsprung compared
to the younger oriental.
Great words.
This is Artemis Mission Control.
That was the voice of Dr. Kelsey Young speaking
with the astronauts aboard Orion as they begin their
observation period and lunar flyby.
NASA astronaut Christina Cook reporting their view of Hertzbrunn Basin.
The team here is looking for centered images of the basin at a full zoom and they're hoping
that the astronauts can image and describe the inner and outer rings.
This is considered a degraded basin with the floor rings and ejecta compared to a
a younger oriental basin.
We talked.
We spoke earlier with Julian Gross, the Artemis curation lead,
about some of the terms we will hear the crew use today.
One of those just called out, that's albedo.
looking at surface brightness or the amount of light a surface reflects.
A few more terms that we hope to hear today during the cruise set wraps our situation
reports include imbeying. This refers to one feature that surrounds another. That usually
is a higher relief feature.
In integrity, one report from the crew at the windows, we can actually see the moon and
earth at the same time right now. It's interesting because the earth looks way brighter, so
the earth itself seems to have a much higher albedo than the moon. We think this is
independent of our eyes focusing because of course the Earth is much smaller than the
moon in our view. So you could think that your eyes focus for the darker sky and that
means that it only has a parent brightness more than the moon but since we're seeing
both in the same view, we do think that this can be inferred as the Earth as a
whole has a higher LBO.
Great observation, Kristina, and reminder that as you're starting to look for those subtle color
and albedo variations on the moon, the relatively bright albedo Earth might make those a little
bit difficult, but as your eyes continue to adjust, we expect you to start to see more
nuance on the moon.
Thanks.
Great call.
Thanks for the reminder.
Great call, thanks for the reminder.
We're all going to be experts in lunar terminology by the end
of the day.
Another one we expect to hear is mares.
These are dark regions paved or filled
by volcanic deposits.
You also can hear them called seas, oceans, lakes
or marshes or other bodies of water.
Again, we are live in Artemis Mission Control, but on the right side of your screen,
that is the science evaluation room.
Team members who have been preparing for this day for years.
The crew has significantly darkened the cabin of Orion.
This allows them better views outside the windows and fewer reflections from inside.
They reported being able to see the moon and the earth
at the same window at this time.
We are really hopeful to get those photos.
Right now, this view on the left side of your screen coming
from a camera mounted on one
of the solar array wings on Orion outside the spacecraft.
The crew is equipped to 80 to,
with 80 to 400 millimeter zoom lenses.
The team continues their warm-up discussion.
I should say the crew members of Board Orion continue their warm-up discussion.
However, they are about to be prompted to move on to discussion number two, which is
near side and far side.
Some of the things that they are looking to capture, the ground has prompted them
to photograph anything that stands out to them and to compare the near side
versus the far side moire in color, albedo, topography, and texture.
They also want the crew to compare the appearance of raid craters
in the near side moire versus in the far side highlands.
Of course, a reminder that some of the items that the crew or some of the landmarks the crew are seeing today is
The first time that humans have ever laid eyes on those portions of the moon
In the targeting package, there are a few reminders of the crew.
For the crew, there are time-sensitive observation reminders
and the science SITREP reminders.
We have SITREP, the targets that are being discussed right now
to the far side, near side comparison and hearing some great discussion
of browns and greens and the Aristarchus Plateau
and how those disappear as you go toward the north pole.
And then over to the far side, you lose the color.
You've got Jeremy in window 2, Reid in window 1, having a great discussion, Christina's
under window, I'm sorry, Reid is in window 3, Christina's under window 1 documenting the
discussion.
And we've got the lights completely off in the cabin.
There are some LEDs that we cannot put out that do provide some light scanner.
But we have all of the internal whites off and are letting our eyes adjust as best we can.
The window 4 view, you only get about a third of the moon.
Tyco is going to go over the horizon soon and you can see Aristarchus and then you start
to lose the view as you go to the west in the Oceanus
and Procevarum.
So far, the team is on the plan, and the long land
is being put to good use, and recordings are being made,
and internal documentation of the configuration,
and the observations is ongoing.
So, you have any questions for us at this time?
Integrity science, Victor, very glad that you provided the first formal science sit-rep
as these were indeed your idea.
One follow-up question, any relationship between those browns and greens you described?
Do you see them blending into one another and do you see any topography associated
with either color?
I don't want to bother the window team, I just heard that, I overheard that and so I'm sorry I don't have that detail yet, I will ease her up and see if I can pick that up.
I will try to answer that at some point.
I also heard a comparison of the Albedo in Aristarchus that created a very high Albedo spot you can see on the near side.
There is a feature called, I believe, Burgess Alpha that is equally or maybe higher albedo.
I apologize for the gaps.
I'm trying to listen and talk at the same time.
But I will try to get some more information to correlate those colors from Aristarchus for you.
Understood, Victor.
And good call to not bug the window team.
Really like the brightness comparisons to Burgess A. Really helpful for the science team.
Keep them coming.
Thanks.
I also heard a discussion about the albedo of Grimaldi being the 10 and how many of us
when we were a little further away saw that as the darkest albedo and that bigger marie
off to the west, sorry to the east was still dark but maybe a 7 and 8.
We still think that, but you are saying color variation, albedo variation, inside of chromaldi
as well, and that even on the west side there's still a very dark part of it, but it is still
the darkest.
It is just not as uniform as it looked when we were farther away.
We're starting to differentiate the striations of albedo inside of chromaldi.
Copy all, Victor, and you read our minds.
Superlatives like darkest, bigest are really, really helpful for us, so keep those coming.
As we were just mentioning, the crew is slated
to perform these science SIT reps.
They are prompted to do so by an icon
in their lunar targeting plan.
That one coming down from NASA astronaut and pilot
of Artemis II, Victor Glover.
As we discussed, the CAPCOM is usually the only person in the room speaking
with the crew, the capsule communicator.
However, today, the science officer, Dr. Kelsey Young,
she is the Artemis Science Flight Operations Lead, is speaking with the crew during the flyby
to ask any questions that the team may have.
To her right is Trevor Graff.
He is one of three science officers.
Those would be Kelsey Young, Trevor Graff, and Angela Garcia,
who will also join us later for an interview.
And Houston Integrity was able to, excuse me, science, Integrity was able to get a view
out of window one, which is a beautiful view.
I can see the entire moon that they're looking at.
We left the t-shirt up there, so I was kind of peeking through the opening
and the makeshift trial there.
And once I was able to get two eyes on it, what jumped out at me was fabelab.
It's just peeking out of the terminator.
It's clear of the terminator now, but it just really jumps out because it's still got
the low light, the low sun angle.
And so where the, you know, a Vavilov has that impact over the top of another crater
where the two craters intersect on the eastern edge.
So on the side closest to Oriental where the two crater rings intersect, the shadow
there is the highest peak in the interior of Vavilov.
So you can see that terrain is a,
there's some real variation in the terrain there
that there's a nice peak where those peaks intersect,
I'm sorry, where those rings intersect.
And we'll get a picture of that.
Love the description, Victor,
especially the comparison and relationships
you just described about topography.
And if it's easier for your observations,
do feel free to remove the T-shirt shroud from window one.
Absolutely. We will do. Thank you.
Those calls coming from NASA astronaut Victor Glover, as we discussed, the crew is working in pairs
at the windows.
Right now, taking photos are Commander Reed Wiseman
and mission specialist Jeremy Hansen serving
as their support team or pilot Victor Glover
and mission specialist Christina Cook.
You're hearing those calls from Victor Glover
as he is on that support team and he is tasked
with providing the science SIT reps.
While the two crew, photographing
and making annotations of the moon are in windows two
and three. Windows one and four are available for the support crew to fly up to. Obviously,
look at the moon themselves and provide these science situational reports.
The view on your screen is part of the lunar targeting package and it's something that the
The crew can reference as they are flying by, but this is an animation.
You also heard Glover mention Oriental.
Oriental is a major feature that the team is interested in today,
and it's known as the Grand Canyon of the Moon.
Until this mission, Grant, the Oriental Basin had never been seen in sunlight by human eyes.
Oriental Basin and its surrounding ejecta could fit within a straight line distance
from NASA's Johnson Space Center where we are at today to a Kennedy Space Center.
This alive view in Artemis Mission Control in Houston, Texas where the teams are monitoring
all systems, not just for today's flyby, but on the spacecraft themselves.
Again, this is a test flight, our very first flight of humans on the Orion spacecraft.
This team has been live, this team has been monitoring the entire time of the mission,
as well as we have been live the entirety of the mission, and we will be continuing
to do so all the way through splashdown and crew recovery from the Pacific.
This is a visualization from Aero, the Artemis real-time orbit website that you can also access
at any time by visiting nasa.gov slash track Artemis showing us that we are now under 10,000
miles from the moon, 9,948 to be specific and continuing to count down.
Again, our closest approach to the moon today should come about 6 o'clock 2 p.m. Central,
7 o'clock 2 p.m. Eastern. However, we will be out of contact with the crew at this time
as they begin transiting behind the moon. At that time of closest approach, the distance
from Orion to the lunar surface will be about 4,070 miles. Of course, these are
estimates at this time and we'll be sure to provide you with the official numbers
once that closest approach has been reached.
This shot live inside the Orion spacecraft where our four crew members
are continuing with their lunar flyby activities. They have just begun those
activities really about 20 minutes ago, so we've got several hours of moon view
opportunities. This is still a live view inside that capsule. However, you can see
just how dark they have turned down the lights. Actually, they've turned them all
the way off. There are a few LEDs that they cannot power off, but turning down
these lights gives them better views outside of the spacecraft's windows
while they photograph the moon. This also prevents any reflections from
inside the spacecraft bouncing up on the windows and interfering with
their photography.
As we were previously discussing, the crew members are serving on teams,
the first team being Commander Reed Wiseman and Mission Specialist Jeremy Hansen
at the windows, photographing what they see.
We heard reports earlier that they can see both the moon and the earth in the same view,
and we are looking forward to seeing the moon and the earth in the same view as well.
That earth set coming up in just a few hours.
While Wiseman and Hanson are at the windows photographing,
Glover and Cook are serving as support crew.
They are able to assist with cameras.
They are also providing those situation reports,
letting us know how the team is working inside the spacecraft,
what they're seeing and how they're feeling about it.
Those first blocks of teams will last about an hour
And the crew members are approaching the halfway point
into their first observation block.
And reminder, we have five of those blocks today.
So they're approaching this halfway point during which the crew
at the window will switch roles.
One will begin taking pictures
and the other will be making annotations on their PCD.
That's portable computing device.
Both of those crew members at the windows are recording audio
of what they see.
They are putting on headsets and recording audio
into their portable computing devices.
Obviously, we are not hearing this right now.
This is going to be sent down to the science team,
and they will be able to analyze that at a later time.
What we are hearing though, and we'll continue to hear,
are those science SIP reps a few times every block.
Once this block is complete, about 40 minutes from now,
we will have the teams switch.
That means pilot Victor Glover and...
I think I may have misreported earlier, saying that it was Tycho going over the horizon.
That was Copernicus.
I was referring to, apologies, it was Copernicus is what is farthest bounding to the east.
And that is now like on the horizon or just past it.
And the coral is now a few degrees from going over the horizon.
And then, you know, next it'll be Aristarchus, Aristarchus flato.
And so, on the west, we are getting a much better view of the terminator.
It looks like we have about 80% of the illumination of the moon.
And Vavilov, and one Vavilov diameter to the west is where the terminator is right now.
And so, other features are starting to peak out there.
The center of the illuminated part of the moon is, to the lower part is, is oriental.
And just around oriental, a lot of light structure is starting to show up.
A lot of high albedo, similar to the feature I cannot remember, just alpha.
And there's darkest type of high albedo in the ring.
So when you look at the interior ring and the external ring, it's almost as if the edges
are starting to dry up and turn white.
If it was something that was wet and got dry, the edges would be the part to dry first.
You just kind of outline all the topography in the interior of that wall.
It's like it was dusted with chalk or it started to dry or maybe dusted with snow.
If this was the Earth, I would say there was snow
dumped on some of the ridges on the interior of the rings
of Oriental.
Also, an interesting part of the discussion I heard
between Reid and Jeremy is that from Galicianco
to Grimaldi, there are two dark features there
that look like commas, but in the wrong direction.
but there's also a lot of interestingness, just a lot of geometry and squiggles and dots
and lines that are starting to stand out as more small features come into view.
And there also is a lot of variation in Albedo.
And some of those, the two dark features, for example, have on the southern edge
of the larger one, the one that's further to the south is a very dark,
that the one albedo, like the southern and western part of Grimaldi, and the one to the
north closer to Glushko is also that same dark albedo.
And then around them, there are some very high albedo spots, just to the north of the
lower, the southern one, and just to the west, the smaller one to the north, very
very high albedo almost approaching the 10, a 9 or a 10, like Aristarchus, and lots of
little bright spots are just starting to pop up in this view.
To the north, as you look up at the north pole, there is a very distinct crater with
a lot of very central, a very defined central peak that is also free in albedo.
and all of that area past it going to the horizon gets lighter and lighter and is very, very high albedo.
And I will go look and find the name of that feature if I can look that up.
And then to the south, really getting some interesting geography and topography in the south pole, Aikin Basin.
And the view of the south pole is quite amazing.
We've got some Terminator there, as well as the Limb view,
and there is a very distinct crater right at the south pole.
And I'm going to go look up, I don't believe that is Aiken,
but I'm going to go look up the name of that one,
because it's also giving a lot of good topography
due to the shadows that I'm seeing.
But that's trying to bound the view that I'm seeing for you,
and got distracted by all of these interesting albedo variations that are popping up in the
interior. But that's the view that we see. Just a vautelab diameter to the west beyond
is where the terminator is. Just beyond. I think Copernicus is the eastern most feature
that we can see. A very nice ring to ferry, nice structure crater to the north with
a great high-albedo central uplift to the north and the south is dotted by a very characteristic
crater with a lot of terrain shadow features and I will go try to find some landmarks to
put names with those.
Any questions for the observation team?
I love the descriptions.
You're definitely looking odd up there.
Appreciate seeing the training being implemented.
Especially interested in your descriptions
of the dark patches.
You compared the comma-looking features
to the LBWC and Grimaldi,
and notice that you're starting
to see those color differences popping out.
Any observations you wanna make,
especially when you get on the PCD in a little bit,
would really help us tease out the differences
in those dark Mare deposits.
Great description, Victor.
Keep them coming.
Absolutely will do.
And I know you've got descriptions
on both of the window observers right now as well.
Keep them coming.
well-trained this crew is by the science team.
NASA astronaut and pilot of the Artemis II mission,
Victor Glover, calling down a situation report,
noting several different features on the moon
and such descriptions, even saying that it looks like snow
on some of the peaks.
Obviously, we do not expect that to be snow,
but referencing that as some of the lighting
on how it looks to the Artemis II crew
from their current position.
The team is slated to be switching their positions at the windows now, both Reed Wiseman
and Jeremy Hansen have been at Windows 2 and 3, one taking photos,
One, making observations and annotations
on their portable computing device.
At this time, we also anticipate
that they are looking at a crater duo.
One of those is Glushko, and the team is,
and the other is Ohm.
The team is looking to know the extent
of Glushko's ray system and how its rays differ
in the mare versus the highlands.
They also want the team to compare the ray systems of Glushko to Ohm.
Ohm is considered a young crater.
If you've ever seen a photo of the rich hat structure, it's also known as the eye
of the Sahara. It's 40 kilometers in diameter and that could fit within Ohm's interior.
The team is specifically interested in descriptions of that ray visibility,
including the color albedo. Remember albedo is the brightness or the surface reflection and the reach.
Again, I am using the same lunar targeting package
that the crew is referencing on board right now.
This helps keep them on time as well as prompt them for when they need
to make a call down to the science team and report what they're saying.
It also gives them reminders of when they need to swap positions at the windows.
Additionally, I'm using the Artemis II Lunar Science Passport developed
by Amber Turner and the Artemis II Lunar Science Team.
Now this passport did not fly with the crew, but they used it extensively as a study guide here on Earth.
So a lot of the descriptions and comparisons you hear today are developed directly by the science team.
We are now four days, 20 hours and 43 minutes.
Science, integrity, that crater to the north, that is, it's like, we've got one in the
north that looks like just a textbook crater, one on the south pole as well, but one on
the north I think is Pythagoras.
And what I wanted to highlight about that is it is either a very distinct central uplift
or just a very defined area of high albedo.
A majority of the crater, especially the floor of the crater is say an albedo of 5, this
center, and gosh, only a tenth of the diameter of the vagus is an albedo of 2, maybe 3, but
it is very bright and it stands out.
And then between that crater and the actual, what is the horizon from here, there seems
to be another crater right on the horizon and right on the edge of that is another patch
of that albedo.
It seems to be between the two craters, it's hard to tell from this grazing angle, but
there is another spot just further north beyond the baggers.
Between the two, I can draw a picture of this one and show you where that very
high albedo, can another two albedo surrounded by five in most of the area.
Bounding it.
Integrity science, thanks for that. We agree with the Pythagoras assessment.
And as a follow-up to your previous report, the SIR had questions about
about topography comparisons between the north pole and the south pole of the moon, if you're
willing to provide words on that.
Topography comparisons, absolutely.
And if you had any idea of what it do draw a line between the bactress and the western
edge of the outer defined range of oriental intersects a beautiful text book creator
on the south. I would love to know the name of that. The topography differences now the
south pole has a little bit of a benefit that it has more of a determinator and I can
see a little more shadowing there but there's a nice crater right at the south pole so
The main thing defining the topography there seems to be quite a bit of elevation change.
I can see some very jagged shadows at 90 degrees just to the west of that crater at the south pole.
I can see a very distinct change in the shadow direction indicating, I don't know,
a very high wall or a very deep canyon just to the west of that.
And in the north, it seems to be that from sort of the edge of the Mare that's dark,
which is maybe one potagoras' diameter south, if you draw a ring about that, you know,
maybe the top seven degrees of the moon and just draw a ring around that, the near side
in an albedo of five, and it looks quite smooth from here.
And then along the same edge of the Mare,
the edge of the Mare, that kind of grimaldi's just outside
of, Lushko is just outside of,
Carroll Crater is just outside of,
and you start to see this dark differences
between the darker seven, eights, and the fives,
and sixes, the fours and fives.
If you follow that line up to the north,
that line is also where the change
in topography happens at the north pole,
the line defining the light and dark
on the edge of the Mare that you can see from Earth.
Draw that line roughly the midpoint of all
that straight to the north pole.
And on the side facing the Earth,
you see smoother topography
and dotted by the back of its next door neighbor crater.
And then on the far side,
you see a lot more cratering and a lot more topography.
And again, the far side has the benefit of a little terminator there,
but I am seeing a variation in the topography.
It seems to be more jagged and a more challenging place to find a place to land
and to even traverse in the south all around the south pole.
And at the north pole, it seems to be it would be more challenging to translate
on the far side of the North Pole compared to the near side
of the North Pole around the Magus.
Copy all, Victor.
You really helped paint a contextual picture
of what you're looking at.
We really appreciate the way that you're guiding us
into the areas you're seeing by drawing comparisons
between recognizable features.
Thanks for that.
And, Kelsey, another little science moment, something I just heard from the window team
is, the more I look at the moon, the browner and browner it looks.
I thought that was an interesting observation.
The two observers have been on timeline, no hardware issues.
They did start to talk a little bit about another feature that you'll hear more
about on the recordings that they called a handprint that was at the end of their glushco
and before they moved into their current target,
they thought that was worth chatting a little bit more about.
And they're preparing to switch after this.
Houston copies and converse.
Houston, science, actually Houston, science integrity, another just observation from the human.
My eyes have shifted a little bit since I've been up here.
I've been wearing my reading glasses to look at the PCD.
Well, this is a very taxing event on the eyes, looking out the window and seeing the very
bright moon and coming back inside to the dark cabin and trying to work cameras and microphones
and logistics and lunch and those kinds of things.
And then looking at the PCD, which is dimly lit, it's just been an exercise.
It is a difficult thing to manage.
I'm up and down on the glasses and then having to wait is my eyes adjust when I
come back in.
As I look back into the cabin from looking out the window,
I can feel my eyes adjusting, and I just have to work through it as they adjust.
Appreciate that report, Victor, and know that we are prepared to read you up targets
from the ground if that would give you the ability to keep your eyes focused on the moon
and not having to swap between that and the PCD.
Just let us know.
Yeah, we appreciate that science and we will also do that for the window teams and we'll
back each other up that way as well, but we appreciate that.
We may take you up on that.
Thanks.
Continued detailed descriptions from the Artemis-2 crew aboard Orion.
Again, this is a test flight the first time we've flown humans aboard this spacecraft.
So every detail, even that it's difficult to look outside the window and then back at
the PCD, that portable computing device, every single detail is appreciated as we prepare
for future missions.
Glover also mentioned that he is now wearing his glasses, now that he's in space and
that his eyes have shifted a bit.
This is something that happens when our astronauts go to space.
There is a fluid shift from the lower half of your body up into your head
and that can cause changes in your eyes.
It's something that we have seen over time for some crew members, especially now that we have been living
and working on the International Space Station for over 25 years.
Again, it's clear that these Artemis-View astronauts have undergone extensive lunar science training,
including classroom instruction, fieldwork,
and high fidelity simulations.
Training expeditions even took place in analog environments
like the Icelandic Highlands
and the Chem-Assassin Impact Crater in Labrador,
where crews practiced identifying
and describing geologic features under varying conditions.
Additionally, here at Johnson Space Center,
Orion mock-ups were used to rehearse crew choreography including three-dimensional space
management with an inflatable moon globe to simulate the flyby. And while on Earth the crew
also used that small lunar passport that I mentioned with descriptions photos and prompts
to help them study the features we hope they'll see. Now this is a view from their lunar
targeting package at this time helping them determine what they're seeing on the moon
as well as on the left, keep up with what their next target will be.
As you can see, we have got a long list and an exciting day ahead of us.
It's now been four days, 20 hours and 53 minutes since Orion launched the top
of the Space Launch System rocket from Kennedy Space Center in Florida
with our four crew members aboard, NASA astronauts Reed Wiseman,
Victor Glover, and Christina Cook and Canadian Space Agency
astronaut Jeremy Hansen.
The Artemis II crew passed a major milestone today
when they passed the Apollo 13 distance record
at 1257 p.m. central, 157 p.m. eastern.
That Apollo 13 distance record was 248,655 statute miles from Earth.
And you've been another observation, the whole moon.
When you look at the moon, something I've never seen in photographs before, but is very apparent,
all the really bright new craters, some of them are super tiny.
Most of them are pretty small.
There's a couple that really stand out, obviously.
And what it really looks like is like a lampshade with tiny pinprick holes and the light shining through.
They are so bright compared to the rest of the men.
We copy Christina.
Thank you.
Looks like you guys might be doing it, but it reminds you to swap positions at the window
and take your SD cards with you.
We're loving everything that you're calling down, so keep it up.
Again, Orion previously surpassed the Apollo 13 greatest distance from Earth by humans
That was 248,655 statute miles from Earth and Orion.
Now, 250,294 miles away from our home planet.
The spacecraft is 9,033 miles away from the Moon
and growing ever closer.
At its closest approach, it will be about 4,070 miles away
and we will make sure we confirm what
that distance ends up being.
This is an approximation and an estimate ahead
of that moment.
We're anticipating them to make that closest approach at 6.02 p.m. Central 702 Eastern when they are in a loss of signal
Transiting behind the moon. They will be the first humans in over 50 years to fly behind the moon and lose contact with earth
We will regain that contact about 40 minutes later as they reconnect to the deep space network
Emerging from behind the moon and we will look forward to seeing an earth rise
Again, the crew is currently in their position swap portion on their timeline.
This allows crew members the opportunity and the experience of all roles necessary during
today's fly by.
Right now those two quivers at the window have swap positions.
Again, the crew at the window's swapping positions.
Right now, that crew is Commander Reed Wiseman
and mission specialist Jeremy Hansen,
while Victor Glover and Christina Cook serve
as their support flyby crew members.
That's why you are hearing Victor and Christina
during those science situation reports.
Those voices will change in about 30 minutes
when they take a turn taking photos
and making annotations while at the window.
Houston Integrity, I wanted to provide an observation for a little bit of,
of descriptive nature on something that we saw on the first day we had good moon views.
This was when we saw more of the nearside and the ground helped me out with identifying
Murray embryum.
Murray embryum, when you have the western limb also in view, looks completely different
than the normal view we have of the nearside.
It is the most striking feature
of the Western limb view that we had.
And the mountain chains that form its eastern side
are very prominent,
but they actually stand out more
than I'm used to seeing even on the western side.
And the whole thing just feels like a big bump.
It actually looks like a large healing wound
with a high albedo forming the mountain chain
around the impact basin.
And it's a, I just don't think I had had enough chance
to describe how striking it was on that western land view
as we were coming in a couple of days ago.
Christina, science absolutely loved that,
especially since that's a feature
that all of us here on earth can observe from home.
So I'm sure tonight everyone's gonna be going out
and looking for evidence of that beautiful topography
you just said.
Thanks for those words.
The view on your screen coming from Orion, a camera mounted on the spacecraft's solar
array wing.
Toward the right of your screen, the near side is the hemisphere we see from Earth.
That is identifiable by those dark splotches which are ancient lava flows.
sorry, science integrity question and a comment.
Question is, is it possible that we're seeing
a Schrodinger basin from this vantage point
in the Terminator at the South Pole?
And the comment is, ohm, the rays coming out of ohm
are less distinct.
We are not seeing the bright rays coming out of it,
but the sort of nine o'clock wedge
that is formed by the change in albedo
from the interior portion, that is to the northeast,
to the surrounding Lidermare, that's, you know,
270 degrees to the west.
That 90 is very distinct and interior.
You've got some great descriptions from the two
at the window about the colors in there,
but in that darker part, in that wedge,
you've got some really interesting color,
even though the rays, the distinct difference
in the albedo almost look like rays,
but it's not the rays coming out.
It's the, just changing that albedo.
Integrity science, that is very intriguing.
Those color rays coming out of OAM
rather than sort of albedo.
And the answer to your question,
we do not think you can see Schrodinger.
It's in darkness as of now,
but thanks for that OAM description.
And it sounds like the pair at the windows
got great descriptions that we're definitely
gonna dive into tonight.
Okay. If you could help me, I was still looking to know what it is. There's a very nice crater.
I'd like to have a lot of pictures of it. What would be right in the terminal at the
south pole or close to the south pole where it's intersecting the terminal right now?
Yeah, Victor, we're assuming you're talking about, you know, kind of if you're looking
at the terminator it's basically like 70% down from the North Pole. Is that where you're looking?
Contact, yes. That is where I'm looking.
In Tigardee Houston, that is an enabled caution for wastewater dump required. We have hit our
limit as expected, no correction.
Copy no correction.
You are an integrity science.
We're trying to figure out what you're looking at there.
Is it like right on the terminator or is it in the eliminated portion next to
to the Terminator.
While we wait for a response from the crew,
the Terminator is that difference between day and night
or brightness and darkness that you see on the moon.
We see this from the International Space Station
as well looking down at Earth.
And science from integrity excuse my space orientation
adaptation if you draw a line between Blue Scho
through the center of Oriental and then another line
from Blushko through the southern tangent of Bore and Tall,
that line would almost perfectly intersect tangentially the crater
that I'm talking about and it is on the terminator.
So yeah, I think I'm not looking at the south pole.
I was a little twisted.
That line description was really helpful.
I have eyes on the sir right now
and they are actively discussing lunar geography.
We will be back with you shortly.
You're hearing a couple of voices today in Mission Control Houston.
One of those is Dr. Kelsey Young.
Integrity Science, we believe that's Zeman Crater.
I'll walk over the way from the speaker, say it again, please.
We believe that that is Zeeman Crater.
Zeeman, okay, and can you say the first letter?
I may be pronouncing that wrong.
What's the first letter of that word?
Zulu. It's Z-E-E-M-A-N.
Copy. Thank you for that. Yes, we've got a great view of that. And when I went back to the window just now, the view has completely changed.
Our trajectory is taking us to a new view, and I'm looking more into battle law, but I've got a nice great view into battle law.
I'm actually away from the window right now, so I'm going to go try to give you some bounding origin of the view that we're seeing.
But I've got to get back to a window in a minute.
Understood, Victoria, you're defining new views of the moon in more ways than one.
Again, when you hear calls down to science or from science, that's Dr. Kelsey Young,
the Artemis science flight operations lead here at a console in mission control.
You also hear communications with the crew from Canadian Space Agency astronaut Jenny Gibbons.
She is the CAPCOM for today.
She is a backup Artemis II crew member.
Those calls from pilot Victor Glover asking about a feature he was seeing,
specifically a crater on the moon.
Meanwhile, the team here in the Science Evaluation Room was actively working together
to determine what feature he was describing.
The teams at the window have continued to move through their targets,
including Ohm, Aristarchus Plateau, Reiner Gamma, and we are preparing for the cabin
and window teams to swap. That's when we'll hear more from Reed Wiseman
and Jeremy Hansen when they take on these support roles while Christina Cook
and Victor Glover are at the windows photographing and annotating.
As we briefly mentioned, if you look towards the right side of the moon essentially,
This live view coming from a camera outside the Orion spacecraft and if you look on the
right side of the moon where you see those dark patches.
I wish I had some more time to just sit here and describe what I'm seeing,
but the terminator right now is just fantastic.
It is the most rugged that I've seen it from a lighting perspective.
There are little islands, there are islands of terrain out there
that are completely surrounded by darkness, which indicates some real variation in terrain.
Up to the north, there is a very nice double crater.
It looks like a snowman sitting there, you know,
in the five, 10 degrees below the pole, in the terminator.
And then on the southern edge, there's almost like a hole.
It looks like a hole.
And it's a diameter of Babylon, size, just blackness.
And then a wall of bright.
And then it goes back to the black beyond the terminator.
So there's just, it looks like there's just a gigantic hole
right there, one Babylon diameter east of the terminator.
And as you go south, the terminator is not a nice smooth arc.
It's just jagged.
There's almost a 110 degree turn in the shadow as opposed to the nice smooth arc,
again, indicating some really interesting variations.
And I'm sure we'll get some photos of that.
And then one of the craters further to the south of Vandalov,
maybe halfway down to the south pole, is not only a very,
it looks again like just a deep hole.
And then there's like two island rays pointing off to the west and north
that indicate very high ridges and very deep canyons coming up out of that crater.
So, again, just some really interesting visual illusions going on with the shadows there.
Like I said, they look like they're looked to be islands out beyond the terminator because
some of the things, maybe even a vautelot diameter into the terminator are catching sunlight
on the peaks of the north and to the south.
It's very, very interesting to see.
Integrity science, oh my gosh, that was an amazing picture you just painted.
I glanced over at the serve video and I literally saw fist pumps in the air.
Those types of observations are things that humans are uniquely able to contribute
and you just really brought us along with you.
So thanks for that.
Did you get a set rep update to you on a slight change in logistics for PCD use?
Christina, this is Houston.
We did not, but we will take it now.
We slightly changed the PCD plan for the window observers.
The two window observers captured their PCD.
So in other words, the one that window 2 went to window 3, and the one that window 3 went
to window 2 when they swapped rather than staying at the window.
We'll plan on all observers keeping the same PCD for all observations.
Copy, Christina.
That makes sense to us, and good plan.
We are coming up here on a cabin and window team swap.
Let me know when you're ready for a quick vehicle status.
As you heard, science.
Go for the vehicle system update.
How do you read?
We don't have much for you.
We just wanted to let you know that toilet right now is no go
for use as we stick with the predetermined limits.
For now, all crew members, please use CCUs.
Otherwise, Orion is looking very good.
And you have 15 minutes in this handover time
where we expect Victor and Christina to switch to the windows
and you and Jeremy to be in the cabin assisting.
Let us know if you have any questions.
I know questions at all and they're in the swap right now.
The first thing I'll play is floating up to the docking hatch window.
And just, what I'm going to call the boring around,
orientologists look so different out the docking hatch right now.
right now it's quite a bit darker. It's the same darkness, not a little darker than Grimaldi,
but it's cool after just being in the 400 mil for the last half hour looking up the clothes. I
got pictures of everything I was just describing on the terminator. It really is a fascinating
terminator and then oriental, this looks so, it looks so dynamic right now. It's very
three-dimensional on the docky hatch compared to what I was just looking at through the 400 mil.
We are getting a sneak preview from one of our SAW cameras of what you're looking at,
and we see some of what you're describing.
We cannot wait to see your photos.
Thanks.
Yeah, Jenny, I wish you had some longer lenses on the solar array so you could see the whole
Move, buddy, man, it is, or the up close, not the whole way, but it is just fascinating here, it's so cool.
All right, MPO and INCO take notes, we want to zoom lens on those saws next time. Thanks, Reed.
Hey, Permanent.
As the crew gets ready to switch positions from the window crew going back to the support
crew and the support crew flying up to the windows, this view inside the room, Capcom,
Jenny Gibbons speaking with the crew, Canadian Space Agency astronaut.
The crew has continued to provide excellent descriptions of what they are seeing on the
lunar surface. In this picture or in this live view actually from Orion and a camera mounted
on its solar array wing, if you look at the dark portion on the right side of the screen,
those are visible from Earth. That's considered the near side.
Those are ancient lava flows from a time early in the Moon's history when it was
volcanically active. If you look towards the left, there's that dark large crater that appears
above to the left of those lava flows, that's Orient Hall Basin.
It's about 600 miles wide and it straddles the moon's near
and far side and this mission is the first time
that humans have ever been able to see this
with their eyes in the daylight.
Again, you hear conversation about that terminator.
You have a great view of that as well.
That's the difference between light
and darkness on the moon.
Victor Glover explaining that as a very jagged looking terminator due to the peaks that they're seeing
and the craters that they're seeing as they prepare to cross over the far side.
You also heard science officer, the Dr. Kelsey Young Artemis Science Flight Operations
lead, sharing with Victor Glover that his responses are truly something that only human
eyes can discern or provide.
So we've previously discussed how having humans observing the moon on this mission is being
combined with lunar robotic data to help us maximize what we know about the moon.
So part of that data comes from the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter, or LRO.
This orbiter provides the robotic foundation that makes Artemis II lunar science possible.
LRO has been orbiting the Moon for 17 years,
which makes it the longest operated lunar orbiter in history.
And it's also the only American spacecraft dedicated specifically
to lunar science and exploration.
Artemis-2 lunar observations are designed to complement data
like the detailed surface images from LRO.
So while LRO provides those detailed high-resolution maps
of the Moon's surface, the Artemis-2 crew adds human
observations that focus on regional contexts and relationships between features, giving
scientists a larger geologic picture.
This combination of robotic and human observations strengthens lunar science.
LRO delivers precise and repeatable measurements over long periods of time, while the Artemis-2
crew contributes real-time visual descriptions and contexts that robotic instruments alone
cannot provide.
The best description I've heard while preparing for this mission is to compare the difference
in looking at the moon with your own eyes on Earth and trying to take a picture with
a camera.
The camera truly never does it justice and it's much easier to describe and perceive
what you're seeing with your own eyes than to take a photo.
These Artemis-2 astronauts can rapidly scan wide areas and adjust their focus in real
time as well as describe relationships between features.
The crew will also observe the same regions multiple times
under changing lighting conditions during the flyby
and provide perspectives that would take robotic missions
years to accumulate.
During the Artemis II mission,
LRO is also attempting to observe some
of these same lunar features that the astronauts
are studying.
Collecting this data simultaneously
highlights how different instruments and human eyes
provide complementary information about the moon.
This LRO data plays a direct role
in preparing for future Artemis missions.
Its measurements of topography, surface temperature,
composition, radiation, and lighting conditions are used
to assess hazards, identify safe landing sites,
and locate potential resources such as water ice
near the lunar south pole.
This mission, Artemis II, represents the point
where years of robotic preparation are paired
with human exploration for the first time
in the Artemis era.
So together, LRO, the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter,
and Artemis-2 are demonstrating how NASA moves
from mapping the moon robotically
to exploring it with humans.
We are laying the groundwork
for future Artemis missions
and sustained lunar operations.
A check-in with Orion,
we are now four days 21 minutes,
four days 21 hours and 22 minutes
into the flight of Artemis-2,
our crew aboard the Orion spacecraft.
We are now 8,153 miles away from the moon, 250,742 miles away from Earth.
The spacecraft is traveling at 1,030 miles per hour.
Hi Houston, the professional science update giver is now in seat two.
That is where Victor is and Christina is nestling in the seat one with the long length.
and we're just getting ourselves oriented here.
It's a cool view in the cabin.
It's actually a cool view to be off the camera now
and looking at my crewmates getting up
to their observation post and looking at it.
It's super fun.
Copy all, we like it.
As we heard confirmation from NASA astronaut and commander
of Artemis II, Reed Wiseman, they are now switching positions
of the support teams and the observation teams.
So, initially, Reed Wiseman and Jeremy Hansen were
at Windows 2 and 3 in the Orion spacecraft taking photos
and making annotations in their PCDs, portable computing devices.
They were also giving audible descriptions into their PCDs,
wearing headsets with microphones and providing recordings
that the science team will be able to listen to later.
We were hearing from NASA astronauts Christina Cook
and Victor Glover as they made observations as part
of the support team.
Now, as these teams are swapping, we anticipate hearing more
from Reed and Jeremy as they'll be on the support team,
while Victor and Christina will be at the windows taking photos
and making annotations.
And Jenny from the science team, if they can mark this time, I just covered up a window
for to block out the ambient light from a very bright planet Earth.
And I'd be interesting to see if in the data, if you're interested to see any differences
from me and Jeremy with that window blocked, it's a lot darker in the cabin now.
Copy read word, taking note, and we'll be curious to.
We are live in the Artemis Mission Control Room during the lunar flyby of the Artemis-2 crew,
the first humans to fly by the moon in over 50 years.
Orion launched four days, 21 hours and 30 minutes ago atop the SLS rocket,
space launch system rocket from Kennedy Space Center in Florida.
Our four crew members inside the spacecraft are transitioning their positions.
The cabinet and window teams have swapped.
Currently at the window, we have Victor Glover
and Christina Cook, NASA astronauts, and serving as a support, Reed Wiseman and Jeremy Hansen.
For our crews at the window, they are using handheld Nikons with an 80 to 400 millimeter
zoom lens.
There are also GoPros on each of the solar arrays on Orion and that's where this view
is coming from right now.
We have an interior camera of the crew as well, but they have dimmed the cabin lights.
They've actually turned off the cabin lights to allow them to better see outside of the spacecraft.
This also helps prevent any reflections from lights inside the spacecraft reflecting onto the windows while they are photographing the moon.
We talked a little bit about the views and the cameras being used
on the Orion spacecraft.
And again, we do have GoPro's on the tip of each solar array wing.
Now, the bandwidth is a little bit limited
because having a crew on board, we do have to downlink a lot more data
That includes their environmental control and life support system.
We are not the only data, this view that you see coming down from the spacecraft.
And so we do rely on sharing some of that
with the other flight controllers in mission control.
This helps the team monitor all systems aboard the spacecraft
and ensure the safety of our astronauts.
We are standing by for a situation report from the crew aboard the spacecraft.
They've been imaging the whole moon.
There is now a new crew at the window.
That would be Victor Glover and Christina Cook.
And so being it's their first time since they have moved
up to the window positions, they have a chance
to orient themselves and describe and take pictures
of any color or albedo variations across the surface.
Reminder, albedo is the brightness or reflectiveness.
Integrity science for a science sit rep when you're ready.
We have no external view of the moon right now for the floating crew members, so my only sign is that we have a picture in window 3 doing observations at Christina and window 2 with the long ones.
Integrity, we copy. Are the shrouds still on windows 1 and 4? And if so, would you consider trying to get a view through one of those windows?
We cannot take the trout off before because the earth is too bright and it's impacting
the ice peripheral vision and then I can get a grazing glimpse out the docking hatch window.
I can see Oriental south down to the south pole and the primary thing that I see from
Oriental right now is the just the long trenches that come out and you know when
you come out the north side of Oriental, the ejecta kind of boulders across the
northern half of the far side. But coming out the southern half of Oriental I just
see those large here they look like gorges or almost like rain when it comes
down the Grand Canyon that figures off into into the desert kind of what it
looks like. Also, Burgos Alpha is extremely bright. It's the brightest thing that I could
see, even brighter now than Aristarchus, which is heading off to the terminator. It's almost
impossible now to see Aristarchus. I think the terminator, I look so much at. I can
just barely see the crater rays from home. I would say for Albino right now, I would
go back to Grimaudi is still extremely dark, especially in that southwest corner and there
are parts of Oriental and the outer ring of Oriental that reach that same level of darkness,
especially the rings of Oriental reach the same level of darkness as Grimaudi.
And then south of Grimaudi, Jeremy and I were noting a few other just really dark areas
of cratering, or I'm sorry, moray there,
and this has that same darker albedo,
but Virgisoph is the brightest, and Kalani is the darkest.
Integrity science, that was a great description.
Thank you, and thanks for the docking window geometry
to give us that description.
Any comments before you go on the annular ring
in Oriental?
The angular ring which I think everybody kind of describes is like a pair of lips or a kiss
on the far side of the moon from here is very circular in nature.
The northern part of it is wider, darker. The southern part is much lighter.
It is very neat looking and it is very far more circular than I remember it looking in our training.
The darkness of the northern side of the annular ring is the same darkness from here out this docky hatch window as the center moray in oriental, not quite as dark as Dravaldi, but it is probably only because dust and lunar wrangles has kind of impacted over time.
over time.
Read that's exactly what we were looking for.
Thanks so much.
You have heart hands coming out of the serf.
Say that again Kelsey.
Just saying that the serf was really excited about that, that annular ring was something
and we were really eager to hear about, so thanks.
Yep, you bet, and now Victor and Christina
are moving on to Oriental.
I got them situated over there a little bit late.
That was NASA astronaut Reid Wiseman now providing a science set rep as he is away
from the windows most of the time.
He is working as the support person along with Jeremy Hansen in the spacecraft
as Victor Glover and Christina Cook are now at windows 2 and 3 able to photograph the moon.
Christina and Victor are also providing recorded information
to their portable computing devices, that's their PCDs,
and the science team will have access to that at a later time.
They will then review it and compile all of this data
to help further our understanding of the moon.
One of the items you heard mention was Oriental Basin.
This has been a very exciting opportunity for the crew.
They have all been very excited about seeing Oriental
as well as the science team has been looking forward to it.
It is known as the Grand Canyon of the Moon
as we discussed earlier.
From the pictures, the science team is hoping
that the crew will take centered images of the entire basin
and surrounding craters in a single frame,
but also use those 80 to 400 millimeter zoom lenses
to create a mosaic entire basin.
With their unaided eyes, the science team is hoping the crew will describe southern dark annual ring,
which you heard Reid just describing, as well as any color, albedo, texture,
or topography across the Mare patches and ring mountains.
Science team reports that the observations will be used
to study the geologic evolution of the youngest lunar basin
and to inform formation hypotheses for the annular ring.
And again, another fun fact about Oriental is the diameter is the same distance
between Johnson Space Center, where we are today,
and Kennedy Space Center, where the crew launched on April 1st.
This live view from the Orion spacecraft on the Artemis-2 mission now 7,373 miles away
from the Moon, 251,130 miles from Earth.
Again, the Army's two crew passed the Apollo 13 record of the humans farthest from the
Earth today at 1257 p.m. Central Time, 157 p.m. Eastern Time.
That distance, set by Apollo 13, was 248,655 statute miles.
We've clearly passed that, and we expect to pass that by about 4,105 miles.
That will be when the spacecraft reaches its farthest distance from the Earth.
It could be around 252,760 miles, but again, these are approximations and our targets.
We will make sure to report back the final numbers once we have them.
We have some refined times of when we expect to have Earth set
of Earth behind the moon while Orion flies behind the moon.
That would be about 541 PM central, 641 Eastern.
The spacecraft would make its closest approach to the moon
at 6 o'clock central, 7 Eastern.
And that would be about 4,066 miles.
And then at 602 PM central.
and the spacecraft will reach its farthest distance from the Earth.
We anticipate that will be about 252,755 miles, which would be 4,111 miles farther than Apollo 13.
We would see Earth rise again at 621 p.m. central time, and a few moments later,
a few minutes later, regain communications with the crew.
Thank you very much for your time, and I'll see you in the next video.
Currently aboard Orion, Victor Glover and Christina Cooke are the two team members conducting lunar
flyby observations, meaning they are using the Nikon cameras to photograph the moon
and their PCD or the portable computing device
to conduct annotations.
They are both recording information that will be
downlinked to the science crew.
And tomorrow morning the science team will have a conference
with the team while the information is so fresh.
They'll be speaking with the crew about their observations
and their data collection.
Otherwise, most of tomorrow, Flight Day 7 is considered an off day.
We are on Flight Day 6 of the Artemis-2 mission, the first time in more than 50 years that humans
will observe the moon directly, providing a critical opportunity
to practice how lunar science will be conducted
during future Artemis missions.
If you're just joining us, the crew is well
into their lunar flyby observations and we anticipate
that we will hear from them soon.
A few times every hour they are slated to call down
with science reps or situation reports.
We most recently had one from Commander Reed Wiseman.
He and Jeremy Hansen, Mission Specialists, were first at the windows today to photograph
and make annotations of what they were seeing.
Therefore, we heard more from Victor Glover and Christina Cook earlier in the day during those
first blocks.
But now that Reid Wiseman and Jeremy Hansen are on the support side,
they are the ones calling down what they are seeing from Windows 1 and 4.
Earlier, we heard that the Earth is so bright in window 4, they have had to temporarily cover it with a t-shirt.
The Moon preserves a near-continuous record of solar system history that has been erased
on Earth because the Moon doesn't have an atmosphere.
So things that we experience on Earth like weather or plate tectonics don't really apply.
So the lunar surface retains evidence of ancient impacts, volcanism and solar activity that
scientists can study today.
And studying the Moon helps scientists understand how planets formed and evolved, how the
Moon influenced our own planet Earth's history, and how the sun-shaped conditions across
the inner solar system.
The Moon also serves as a unique platform for studying the broader universe.
of science is designed around questions best answered by humans working alongside robotic
systems, combining decades of robotic lunar data with real-time judgment context and adaptability
that only humans can provide. This mission, Artemis 2, is serving as a proving ground
for lunar science operations, which allows NASA to test how science is planned, executed
and supported during a crewed deep-space mission ahead of our future Artemis flights.
Integrity time for a window team position swap.
So, Victor and Christina, please switch places if you've not done so already,
and remember your SD card for the camera.
We're in the swamp right now, they're wrapping up their last comments and we'll switch over
for an exchange card from the long list.
Copy.
As you heard in that call, it is now time for the team members
at the window to swap positions.
That means Victor Glover and Christina Cook will be switching roles.
One of them has been photographing the moon with a Nikon,
with an 80 to 400 millimeter zoom lens,
while the other was making annotations
on their portable computing device.
And both are recording audio that the science team will be able
to listen to. We are now two hours and ten minutes until we expect to lose signal with
the spacecraft as they fly behind the moon. And the next target for the crew is considered
crew choice event. They have the option to focus on any regions or patterns or features that interest
them. The science team has asked the crew to capture pictures that illustrate their choice
as well as at different zoom levels and to describe why those certain features or regions caught their eye.
Those recordings are part of what are being saved
on their PCDs, portable computing device,
that will be sent to the science team for analysis.
The crew has been allotted eight minutes for this crew choice event, and it's also a time
for a scheduled sit rep or situation report, so we expect to hear them calling down what
that they are seeing soon.
Something that the crew or that the science team has used
to help prepare the crew is a cue card.
These ask for a feature ID if they happen to know the type
or name and if it is a target.
Of course, in this situation, when they have a crew choice,
they do not need to, it may or may not be a target.
They want to know the location and the observation style.
They've also asked for the geometry of what's being captured, the size, shape, boundary,
and preservation, as well as the color and shadow.
So the color tone, the albedo, that reflection or brightness, and any shadows or illumination.
Next, they're interested in structure and texture.
That includes slopes, structures and textures, of course, and geologic relations,
like association to other features, any contact to those features, and of course their thoughts,
impressions or interpretations. They are interested even in emotions and excitement
that the crew may be having. This fly by day has been practiced in many ways,
even in SIMS here in Mission Control Houston.
The team also conducted some field work learning how to look for specific geologic features.
They also photographed a large globe and the science team helped them determine which features they would be targeting and how to look at those.
We have a few more minutes that the crew would be photographing their crew choice.
Again, this is NASA astronaut's Victor Glover and Christina Cook at the windows.
They will then move on to another discussion portion.
This is for the far side albedo, that reflectiveness, and color that they are seeing.
We heard earlier about some browns seen on the moon, which is very interesting, especially here from Earth, where we are just seeing whites, grays, and maybe even black at some points.
When they get into that discussion for far south, far side albedo in a few minutes, the theme is looking to know how that color and albedo is what those variations look like across the far side.
On the right side of your screen, the Science Evaluation Room, or CER,
where team members are looking real time at what the crew is seeing and even earlier we're.
You ready for science zero?
We'll take it.
Okay that crew has swap positions they're in their crew choice
element. I've been listening to both of them for a little bit and they're really enjoying
They both decided to pick the terminator and it's been a lot of time looking at the terminator,
just talking about the resolution that they can see in the depth of the craters
and the various interesting and unique excavations that they can see.
So Victor is on the long lens and Christina is just looking up the window.
And I'm a sneak in my look, a peek in t-shirt window.
It looks like, I don't have the best angle here, but it looks like Aerostarchis is on the limb of the moon now.
It's amazing how quickly it changes as we speed around the far side of the moon,
stuff that's leaving our field of view.
And now we have a lot of the dark side of the moon
that's missing for us right now.
But it would be a view if it was lit at all.
Jeremy, science, thanks for that, sitrep.
Do have a question.
A few times we've heard you and the other crew
describe change during the course of your flyby.
Would be interested in future descriptions
more verbosity about how it's changing. Thanks for the great separate.
Yeah, Kelsey, sounds good, we are definitely keeping an eye on that, my eyes are just
not readjusted the moon is so bright when you come back to the window. I was just in
the interior of the cabin. I've come back to T-shirt window and it's just overwhelming
brightness. And my viewing angles have been challenging. So I won't be able to give you
great observations from this window. But I will talk about something that I was talking
a lot about in my recordings earlier, which was we've been talking about some
And so we have obviously the dark and the light gray.
And then we talked about naming some colors, that brown issue
and the green issue.
And I'll tell you like right now, Aristarchus,
the plateau is hard for me to see from this window,
but that had green issues to me.
It was very unique.
I didn't see anything like that anywhere else
on this side of the moon.
And then I see a lot of these, what I would call brownish hue areas.
There's a number of them.
And they, for example, in the northwest corner of the highlands, to me, it looks like the brownish hue is caused
by ray or ejective material landing on the highlands.
And then we obviously see the ray areas as a lighter opium, but in between the rays
where the deposit would be thinnest, that is what it looks like is causing
to Brown to me. So I saw that in the northwest side of Aerostarcus, or sorry, that dark area,
the highlands. Northwest side of the highlands I saw it in the highlands to the east of Glushkoe.
And then I see those same brownish hues west of Oriental. And I drew a contact there on
on one note, and that's a huge region, kind of like a piece of pie with the point of the
pie pointing at Oriental and then going up towards the northern side of Herksprung.
And that is an area that just looks like a different brownish albedo.
That was fantastic, Jeremy.
We had heard rumors of the green and brown hues, and so you really read my mind on asking
about those, understand they likely didn't have any contact with each other the way that
you described them, but please correct me if I misunderstood that.
And then last thing, I'll make the same offer we made to Victor earlier, if it would be
helpful for us to verbalize any targets so you can stay at the windows and keep
your eyes adjusted to the moon.
Please let us know.
If you've got something you want to select, I'll see you can send it on up.
not looking to interrupt your flow read and Jeremy only offering assistance if
you guys want to keep your eyes off of the PCDs.
Not really science related and we definitely learned this in a follow but
The thing that is just most fascinating, I think to me a picture right now, is even as rugged as the far side looks,
when you look at Orientall and home, it's rugged, but man, when you look at the Terminator, it is just like impossibly rugged.
And it reminds you that the whole far side is that way.
The Terminator is really bringing out the shadows and the hills and the valleys.
And it is just, it's unbelievable, it's like no surface
of the terminator is not marked by meteor impact.
And it's just, it is very impressive to look at that.
As you realize that that is true across the whole far side,
you just can't see it during the sun elimination right now.
Reed, Houston copies and we were commenting
on the same thing, even from our view,
the terminator looks absolutely alien
because there's just so much texture in there
that we're just not used to seeing.
So thanks for sharing that with us.
There's also, I don't know the name of it,
coming out the south, southwest of Oriental,
right on the southern terminator
is just a massive crater.
I don't know the name of it,
maybe you can look on the solar ray wing video
and tell me it's right.
It's the southernmost crater you see
on the terminator right now.
We're looking for you.
We're loving that picture, thanks for showing us and read as an answer to your last question.
We believe that that is Chebyshev crater and the sir agrees with that.
Okay, that picture I was just showing you is an Anex iPhone out the docking hatch for the high-grazing angle.
It's just amazing.
We love it. Thank you.
This is Artemis Mission Control in Houston, Texas.
National Ops time for days 22 hours, 12 minutes into the flight of Orion.
This is Lunar Flyby Day for the crew aboard the spacecraft.
Reed Wiseman, Victor Glover, Christina Cook, and Jeremy Hansen are now the farthest people
to have ever traveled from Earth.
This alive view from inside the spacecraft, they have turned off the lights so they're
able to see outside and photograph the moon better with no reflections from inside.
And for a very brief moment there.
Integrity Science, thanks for those iPhone views.
It's helpful to see what you're seeing.
We very briefly saw NASA astronauts, Reed Wiseman,
showing a picture he took on his phone of the moon.
We do expect to get all of the photos that the crew is taking today and we cannot wait
to share some of those with you.
But pretty cool in the meantime just to see one quick shot from what the crew is seeing.
And this view from outside the spacecraft on Orion's solar array wing.
Orion is now 6,643 miles away from the moon
and continuing to grow closer.
Again, their closest approach will be about 4,066 miles.
The best comparison is if you held a basketball at arm's length,
that's about what it would look like to the Artemis II crew
at their closest approach.
This view showing at the very top a camera coming from Orion, continuing their flyby
of the moon.
We have three more fly-by observation blocks after the completion of this one.
Down in the bottom left of your screen, that's the CER, the Science Evaluation Room,
where team members are continuing to work through all of the targets
that the crew is photographing today, and they've helped identify some of the craters
and some of the other items that the crew has seen on the moon surface.
Down on the right is Artemis Mission Control here in Houston.
Those two rooms down at the bottom are just down the hall from each other.
And we are just a few minutes away from the next cabin and window team swap.
That means Victor and Christina who have been at the windows will fly
to the cabin, the background essentially and be their support crew for Reed and Jeremy.
Reed and Jeremy will move back up to the windows.
The
crew is continuing their discussion portion of the flyby
in the lunar targeting package where it says Farside Albedo
slash color.
They are looking at the science team,
looking to get a good understanding of what the crew can
see on the Farside at this point,
and its brightness as well as any colors.
We did hear earlier on Canadian Space Agency astronaut
Jeremy Hansen reporting that they could even see
browns and even greens on the moon.
I'm really looking forward to seeing those photos.
And in just a couple of minutes, the teams will swap
from the cabin to the window.
Another rundown of just how this fly by is choreographed
inside the spacecraft today.
So these activities have been timelineed,
and there are these five blocks of time
during which the crew is going to be observing the moon
from Orion's windows.
Now we are just coming up on the end of this second blog
and we'll start the third soon.
So at any time during those blocks,
two members are at the windows working in a pair.
One is taking photos from window two
and has a blue shroud over the window
to help prevent any reflections from inside the spacecraft.
They are also using an 80 to 400 millimeter zoom lens.
And the other astronaut on the window team will be
in window three using their portable computing device
to make annotations.
Now, again, both of those crew members are making audio recordings of what they are seeing,
and we are not hearing that right now.
Those are going to be downlinked later to the science team who will evaluate them
and use that data to inform our understanding of the moon.
Those two crew members at the windows swap roles.
integrity Houston it is time for another swap between the cabin and the window
teams so we have 15 minutes of handover time and then we will expect Jeremy and
read at the windows and Christina and Victor at the cabin I have no new vehicle
updates for you but I do have a photo location for some photos on IPCD and I
I want to let you know that Jeremy's family have arrived in the viewing gallery.
Okay Jenny, we copied most of that.
The only thing we're missing is what you meant about the photo location on Victor's PCD.
and hello to my family.
I think there must be Catherine and Devin that are there.
And I'm glad they made it into the viewing room.
And we copy it's time for crew swap.
The A team's coming out of the windows and the B team's going in.
Okay, copy.
All I meant to pass for Victor's PCD is
that there are some late load photos that were requested
that are now in his favorite photos folder.
And you're exactly right, we have Catherine and Devin here.
They give you a big wave and they are super excited and happy
to see part of what you're seeing.
Okay. Copy, Jenny, we're not sure what we're looking for in the PCD, but we're going to
poke around and we may be calling you back about that one.
All right, that's no problem, and it's unrelated to flyby.
This is Artemis Mission Control here at Johnson Space Center in Houston, Texas.
And as you just heard, CAPCOM or capsule communicator Jenny Gibbons, Canadian Space Agency astronaut
and Artemis Shukru backup relaying to the teams in Orion that it is time for a swap
from the cabin to the window teams.
We're now at the tail end of the second lunar flyby observation block.
Again, we have five of these today.
Most recently, Victor Glover and Christina Cook were at the windows photographing
and making annotations.
While Reed Wiseman and Jeremy Hansen were in the cabin providing support whether
that is SD card help, but also science sit reps calling down any situation reports for what they
are seeing on the moon or anything about the vehicle status.
With that call to make the swap Reed and Jeremy will be back at the windows
making observations for what they see at the moon and taking photos.
Again, you're watching live coverage of NASA's Artemis 2.
to come, but something that's truly awesome up here is we now have the moon and the earth
in window three simultaneously, and the moon is a givus, and the earth is a crescent, and
I'm guessing in about 45 minutes we'll have two identical crescents as we change our position
in the universe.
That is pretty darn cool.
Thank you.
That's the Artemis II crew, the first astronauts to fly by the Moon in more than 50 years reporting
that when they look out of window three, one window, they're able to see both the Earth
and the moon at the same time now.
Now, obviously our view is from a camera
on the solar array wing pointed at the moon,
and we hope to see that view of both the earth
and the moon soon.
Some upcoming times for what you can expect.
In about an hour and 40 minutes,
we will have earth set, and during that time
During that time, we will have a view of Earth going behind the moon.
Shortly after, just a few minutes later, we will lose signal with the Orion spacecraft.
This is tracked as it is going behind the moon and out of reach of the deep space network.
At 6 o'clock p.m., the spacecraft will make its closest approach to the moon at a distance
of about 4,066 miles.
At 602 central, the spacecraft will reach its farthest distance
from Earth at about 2,252,755 miles.
Of course, these are approximate and we will make sure
to provide you with the final distances once those are confirmed.
At 621 p.m., we will have Earth rise from the Orion spacecraft.
But we will not have communications with the spacecraft
until 6.25 p.m. central when we expect to acquire signal with them after they've emerged
from behind the moon.
Again, you're watching live coverage of NASA's Lunar Flyby
for the Artemis-2 mission, first crew to fly beyond the Moon
in over 50 years.
The astronauts inside the spacecraft are switching positions, two at the windows
and two serving in support roles before they start their third timeline flyby observation for today.
We've heard great calls from the crew so far describing what they're seeing,
all well trained by the science team here on the ground.
Another major milestone for the crew today will be to experience a solar eclipse from
their capsule.
No one on Earth will experience this solar eclipse.
To the astronauts, this will look a lot like a total solar eclipse on Earth, except the
The moon will be huge compared to the sun, whereas if you're standing on Earth and looking
at a solar eclipse, the moon and the sun appear to be about the same size in the sky.
As the moon begins to cover and then uncover the sun, the astronauts will see a partial
solar eclipse, so that's before and after totality, and during that timeframe they will
have to wear eclipse glasses so they can safely view this phase.
They also intend to capture images of the sun's corona during the eclipse.
This is a rare glimpse at the innermost corona that will only be captured by the astronauts'
cameras.
During the eclipse, we also look forward to the crew members describing what they will
see, which includes unique light features like the shape and size of the corona and
potentially even lunar dust.
At the same time, Venus, Saturn, Mars, and Mercury will be near the sun, so they may be
able to identify what part of the sky they're looking at.
This can help train future Artemis astronauts on what part of the sky they're seeing, which
is useful knowledge in challenging situations when they may need to rely on that information
instead of instruments for navigation and orientation.
That eclipse window will last about an hour, and it'll happen near the end of
of the day today, closer to 7.35 p.m. central, 8.35 Eastern.
As you can see in this live view from Orion, the Earth is, the spacecraft is maneuvering
around the Moon and the views of the Moon have changed since we started our broadcast.
The near side is now very far to the right side of your screen.
This is the side that we can see from Earth.
That darkened portion are ancient lava flows.
The crater down towards the bottom of the moon is Orion Tall.
And this is a crater that was previously never seen before by human eyes until this
mission. Everything to the left of Oriental is considered the far side and this is what
that we typically do not see from Earth.
And just a reminder about this view, this is coming from a GoPro camera mounted on the
tip of one of Orion's four solar arrays.
Each solar array has a camera mounted on it, and the bandwidth is limited due to we have
a crew on board, and this is our first flight of crew aboard the Orion spacecraft.
So, having a crew means we have to have an environmental control and life support system.
There's a lot of data around, a lot of data to bring down for the crew members
to keep us up to date on everything happening aboard the spacecraft.
So, we have to share our bandwidth when it comes to imagery and data.
Inside the Orion spacecraft, the astronauts have completed their cabin and window team
swap meaning we have moved into the next block of lunar flag observations. Jeremy
Hansen and Reed Wiseman are now back at the windows taking photos and making
annotations. About halfway through this block they will switch positions at the
windows and will be prompted by the ground to do so.
First of all, I'll just talk about the experience that I had during Victor and my observation
time.
It was an incredible experience.
We definitely noted how much more you could see with the zoom lens, even though we have
a great visible eye image, there's just a lot of texture that just pops right out
at you when you can zoom in, so almost just using it like a telescope with a camera
lens.
We really enjoyed our discussion time, that was a great innovation on the litter targeting
plan.
We were both able to describe a lot more kind of with flow, I would say, when we were talking
to each other and it was also, we sort of were able to bounce ideas off of each other
and come to new conclusions.
We had, I think, a very successful talking through of some contacts between different
color areas, both in the Mare and in the Highlands, and we identified some really unique texture
areas as well.
At one point towards the end of the images of my time in Window 3, I just had an overwhelming
sense of being moved by looking at the moon.
It lasted just a second or two and I actually couldn't even make it happen again, but
This thing just drew me in suddenly to the lunar landscape and it became real.
And the truth is the Moon really is its own body in the universe.
It's not just a poster in the sky that goes by.
It is a real place.
And when we have that perspective and we compare it to our home of the Earth,
it just reminds us how much we have in common.
Everything we need Earth provides.
and that in and of itself is somewhat of a miracle
and one that you can't truly know
until you've had the perspective of the other.
I'll switch into some logistic stuff.
The TAL Tours, both their batteries
stopped providing the active listening,
but we've verified they are still recording
and so we are able to have discussion time
and hear outside our recordings
by just moving the ear cup off of the ear.
Other than that, everything's working well technically
and we've been able to find all our targets
and we're having a really great time.
Thanks, Christina.
We copy those logistics for the pulse tours
and also thanks for bringing us into the cabin
with you with that description.
Right on time, NASA astronaut Christina Cook, a mission specialist for Artemis II, calling
down a science rep, a situation report.
Good news reporting that she and her teammates have been able to capture all targets that
were listed. Christina also gave a vibrant description of just how it feels to be there
and to see the moon up close and not just something passing in our night sky.
Currently the team members at the window are Reed Wiseman and Jeremy Hansen.
Meanwhile, integrity cabin team for windowshroud.
Okay, go ahead, Jenny.
Hey, Victor, we have a temperature constraint on the windows
and the shroud might be getting us close.
So we just want to check on the state of window for shroud,
whether you believe it's still necessary
because maybe things have changed with our viewing.
And if so, we would like to request
to have the shroud removed.
Houston, we believe it is necessary.
We pulled it off just as a corner and it is very bright.
It definitely would affect our night vision and maybe comfort.
But is there a time, can you tell us when we would have to take it off by?
Unfortunately, since it's been on for a while, we are going to have to request that the shroud
is removed and we can recommend something that could block the light but just create
a bit of distance between the window and whatever is covering it, something like a t-shirt would
do the trick and help.
Okay, we're moving the trout and we will make it work.
Thanks.
Thank you, Victor.
We know it's pretty right in there now with that window uncovered.
We will also offer that airflow on the window would be helpful.
So if you want, you can also retrieve the condensation hose,
which should be friction-fit onto one of the diffusers.
And that on the window would also help.
We can easily point a diffuser at the window, so we're going to start
with that and it's pointing at the window now.
Okay, we'll take that, Victor, thank you, please keep us updated.
That call from Capcom, Jenny Gibbons, a CSA astronaut and Artemis II crew, back up to
the crew aboard Orion, letting them know that they will need
to remove the window shroud they had placed on window 4.
They initially placed that shroud there to block out some
of the light from the Earth.
It was extremely bright coming in the cabin and interfering
with some of their viewing opportunities out at the moon.
This was a request from ground teams to ensure
that they are protecting other systems.
and the crew has been offered the opportunity
to use something else to cover the window.
Meanwhile, Reed Wiseman and Jeremy Hansen continue
with their lunar fly-by observations.
They have just looked at Glushko Crater.
That's about when we heard that call down from Christina Cook
with that description of everything she had been seeing
during her observation period and what she was seeing
at that time.
The science team asked this crew to take centered images of the entire crater and their ray system
in one frame.
They're also interested in knowing the brightness, texture, and extent of Glushko's rays and
how they differ in the mare, or that sea area, versus the highlands.
Gluchko is considered a young lunar crater,
and these observations can help understand material properties
of those craters.
I had the unfortunate sequence to start off with connecting with what Christina said,
that it was very moving to look out the window.
I had the unfortunate sequence to start looking
out the window and then moved to the long lens
and it was hard to speak.
Looking through the zoom, because I went straight
where Christina went and I was walking around down there
on the surface climbing and off-roading
on an amazing terrain.
I also want to underscore something that she said
as we continue to explore when we actually do go down
to the surface. I know for safety reasons that we would never send someone alone,
but I just want to really emphasize how important the discussion time was.
When we started to talk, we not only got better science discussion,
we got better human connection.
And so doing this as a pair, we just learn and grow together.
That's just super important.
So thank you for adding that to this plan.
Reid just passed me a note that the Oriental basin annular ring has a similar albedo
to the center, but it's a different color.
It has more brownish tones in it.
And he said it's very distinct now that he's been staring at it.
Victor, thank you.
You got a tear from Science Fair.
And we all just went on that moonwalk with you.
So highlighting how important it is to talk about these things.
I also want to let you know that we have Deanna Glover
with us in the viewing gallery.
She's all smiles.
Well, you just got a bunch of cheers up here, hey babe.
I love you from the moon.
We love that we got a hey babe too.
And we also have one of your lovely daughters here watching you guys work.
Thank you guys for doing that.
for supporting them through this to all of you.
Genesis, Maya, Joya, and Karen, I love you.
And Deanna, I love you, I'm glad you get to be there.
We've had some really sweet words from the crew members aboard Orion today
as their families have been able to filter in and out of the viewing room here
at Artemis Mission Control at Johnson Space Center in Houston.
Victor Glover also giving a great science rep and just a description of how it must feel
if you were down on the lunar surface while he was looking
through that 80 to 400 millimeter zoom lens.
He also expressed how important it was to be able to talk through that real time with Christina Cook
and stress the importance of that on future missions, that it not only made their discussions better, but also more human.
Glover and Cook are in the support roles right now, not taking photos or making annotations at the windows,
but they are also encouraged to have their midday meal at this time.
For lunch today, those two crew members have options of beef ravioli, salmon, butternut squash,
sweet and savory kale, pickled beets, cherry blueberry cobbler, tuna noodle casserole,
tomatoes and artichokes, broccoli, and chocolate peanut butter bar.
Once Glover and Cook return to the window portion of their flyby today,
Reed Wiseman and Jeremy Hansen will get into their midday meal.
Again, this is the third of five scheduled blocks for our lunar viewing today.
And if you are watching at the start of the broadcast,
you can definitely tell the difference
in the distance from the moon.
We are now 5,518 miles away from the lunar surface.
And again, expecting the crew to get about 4,066 miles away.
They are currently 252,050 miles away from Earth.
And every mile is a new record having surpassed the Apollo
a 13-mile stone for furthest distance earlier today.
If you look down to the bottom right of the moon in that darker looking area, that is Oriental Basin.
We have continued to lose views of the near side.
It is just barely visible over towards the bottom right side of your screen.
And then you'll also hear later about that terminator.
That's the line between light and darkness while on the moon.
It is really exposing some of those craters at this time.
A couple of the other features in view right now are Hertzsprung Basin and Valyov Crater.
Kurtzsprung basin is nearer to the center of the moon,
closer to that terminator line right now.
And Vavilov crater is just on the outskirts of it,
closer again to the terminator.
Towards the bottom of the moon and to the left
of the terminator line or currently shadowed in darkness,
This is Apollo Basin.
Science from integrity, let me find out how far we are from the Moon right now.
But our view is about a third of the Moon is in eclipse.
that beautiful terminator is out there calling to me.
We're 4,691 miles from the moon.
And what looked like in the terminator about a third
of the way up from the southernmost part of the terminator looked
like a dinosaur print.
One was running to the northwest.
Now there's clearly a crater with a bunch of craters around it.
And that term, I can only see about half of it.
I'm looking through the docking hatch window right now
because we have the Z9 and A1-0-1, but that terminator has moved.
I guess I've been using Vivallaw the whole time,
so it's gone two more Vivallaw craters to the west.
And so a few more features are starting to peek out into the sunlight there with that
low sun angle.
And so you just still have ridges and valleys showing up very clearly, a very jagged terminator
and a few islands of light out there with some high elevation shining in the sunlight
in that darkness.
on the eastern side of the moon, the, let's see,
Gromaldi appears to be one of the farthest east features.
And that is maybe five degrees from being right
on the limb and going off over the horizon.
It is interesting just looking at Orientall
that my first impression of it is all
of the dark areas appear lighter,
which I think makes sense because it is now facing,
well it's still relatively the same to the sun,
but my angle to it is different.
So I'm looking at it from a little more, even further
to the side as we pass it.
But all the darker features appear
to be just a little bit lighter from this vantage point.
The darker ring structure in the outer and inner ring
and the interior as well
as the inner ring portion.
Everything seems to be just the smidge lighter
at this point.
Thanks for that description, Ike.
Any additional words you can provide on Oriental would be wonderful
as that is such a high priority target for us.
And while I have you, as we get closer to target 15,
which is the terminator target, if you can find Zeeman Crater again
that you were looking at earlier, everything to your left of Zeeman would be getting into
the South Pole-Agan area to help you orient yourself.
Zeeben is a great way to point out there.
I definitely see it.
Yeah, Zeeben is very easy to find and that is awesome.
Thank you for pointing that out.
Feel free to do that as often as you think of things.
Let's see, looking back at Oriental, okay, another thing, after looking through the zoom
camera.
Man, you guys are smart.
You probably did this on purpose, but after looking with my plain eyes and then going to
the 400 millimeter zoom, now looking at it, I see the cliff faces.
If you're standing in the center, that inner and outer ring has definitely some real
terrain to them.
And now I can see that as to right now that I look at even with my naked eye I can tell
that there's a lot of elevation and like I said a cliff face on that eastern edge with
all the darker deposits are.
And it's just the scale now.
Looking at it from far away before it seemed like a flat with color painted on it.
But now that I look at it I can definitely see that there is different depositional
characteristics and so the darker is some other material but there's also some
shadowing going on because of the the cliff face that is a part of that
crater wall. Great description Victor thanks and really interesting to hear now
the distinction between shadow and color. Before I let you go back to other
their observations. You mentioned that Reed saw a browner hue to the annular ring and
the rest of Oriental. Are you seeing that from your vantage point?
The way that I'm looking at Oriental, again, I'm still in the docking hatch window. There's
like a thermal couple right here in the center of the window.
And it is the orange cap-ton tape color.
And so it is, unfortunately, it's like trying to look at stars,
you know, next to a metropolis.
I think it's drowning out any color
that I could pick up from the moon.
I am not able to see that color.
But I have not looked at it through one of the four,
from one of the windows one through four.
I think when I get away from this Cap-Ton tape strip that I would be able to see the variation that Reid's talking about.
That is great feedback operationally. Thanks, Victor. I'll lead you to it.
Science integrity with a question from the window team.
Integrity to science here with you.
Yes, they have a question to help inform a theory that they're sort of tossed back and forth.
What is older, the Mare seas of the near side or Oriental?
Standby integrity, we're going to get you a little geologic history here.
Integrity science back with you for some lunar volcanism when you're ready.
You're making our day down here getting to talk about lunar volcanoes.
Oriental as far as mare go is younger than almost all of the mare on the near side.
The exception are features like Aristarchus, which really pop out to you guys and really
pop out to us here on Earth.
That is younger.
and that oriental is pretty young as far as Mariko.
And Kelsey, thanks for that.
We love lunar volcanism too.
How about when the actual crater was formed?
Yeah, we're going to get you an age for Oriental.
And while we're getting that, Christina, can you, maybe you've heard the window team talk
about the sort of contacts around Oriental, but because it's that material is so much
younger.
if anything pops out to you about physical relationship
between that and surrounding terrain.
We'd love to hear it.
Yeah, definitely.
They are discussing a contact relationship
that could explain some of the color
that they're seeing in certain areas.
And so it was really about the ejecta of the creation
of the basin and understanding the superposition of its ejecta and tamari on the near side
or other features.
So, thank you.
We'll take the insight.
What do you have?
Thank you, integrity.
And I know Jenny wants to get to you with some topics, so I'll leave you with Oriental
as 3.8 billion years old.
Copy that.
So that's on the older side.
The actual basin was very old.
Correct.
As is the case with a lot of MRA, typically the big basin formed
and then the volcanic eruption was able to punch
through the crust where it was weakened
by that base information.
Perfect.
Jacking.
Thank you.
NASA astronaut Christina Cook, calling down some questions
to the science team on console.
The voice you're hearing with those answers is Dr.
Kelsey Young. She's joined by Trevor Graff on console today.
Christina asking about the age of Oriental and specifically the Marais
regions. Those are those dark regions that you see.
They are paved or filled by volcanic deposits.
Integrity, it's about time for a position swap at the window, so we will ask Reed and
Jeremy to swap positions, and I'll remind you again about your SD cards.
And Victor or Christina, I have one window task for the captain team when you're ready.
They are swapping and I'm ready.
All right, Tina, we found a way that we can reinstall the shroud on the window.
We understand it's pretty darn bright compared to everything that you're looking at.
So in order to reinstall it, we will ask that you retrieve the condensation hose
and you install it on a friction fit on the cabin air outlet port.
That's right by one of your diffusers.
You're going to point that little condensation hose such that the air is flowing
over the window pane.
Let me know when you're ready for the stowage location.
Ready.
Christina, the host is in Locker A1.
Crew has gotten a go to reinstall that window shroud.
They were using to block some of the earth shine.
Happy.
This view coming from inside the Orion spacecraft
as the crew members are swapping windows,
specifically Reed Wiseman and Jeremy Hansen.
They've been our crew members at the windows taking photos,
making annotations, and making recordings that will be
downlinked later to the science team for review.
The science team will have a conference tomorrow morning
with the crew to get any fresh perspectives or things
that they learned during the flyby.
Again, we are now in the third of five observation blocks for the crew scheduled for today.
During this flyby, Orion is passing around between 4,000 and 6,000 miles from the Moon
and providing the crew with a full view of the lunar surface.
higher vantage point and much farther than Apollo's lunar orbits on average.
So from this view astronauts can observe both the North and South Pole and large scale geologic
features in one single view.
We are now just under an hour until Orion passes behind the moon and we lose communication
with the crew.
They will be out of reach with any of our deep space network antennas.
That loss of signal will last about 40 minutes and we expect to regain communications with
them once they fly behind the other side of the moon.
While they are behind the moon, they will also reach their max Earth altitude as well
as their closest approach to the lunar surface.
The view you have right now is a live stream from a camera
on Orion's solar arrays.
You are looking at a live view of the moon
and four people are inside that spacecraft taking pictures
of it telling us everything that they are seeing.
The first humans to do so in over 50 years.
They'll be sending those pictures down for all of us to enjoy and, of course,
especially the science team who are very excited for what they are learning today.
It appears the Artemis-2 spacecraft Orion is now under 5,000 miles away from the moon.
Again, we expect their closest distance to the moon be about 4,066 miles.
That is an estimate at this point, and we will make sure
to share that closest approach to distance once we receive it.
Did you just want us to cool the window with the condensation hose, or did you want us
to put the shroud back on and cool the window at the same time?
Victor, we definitely want you to cool down the window with the condensation hose.
It's crew preference whether you put the shroud back on.
The hose will allow you to do that if it helps with your lunar flyby.
Okay, copy.
We're going to do both at the same time.
Thank you.
Houston copies.
Houston, thank you for that suggestion.
The cabin is darkened again, and that makes a big difference with imagery.
And for science, we are now seeing a half moon.
Thank you, Victor. We're happy to hear it. And we see half moon full moon joy still
Crew reporting from Orion that they are seeing half the Moon,
which is about what it looks like here from this view
from the spacecraft.
However, what has become a little bit of a catch phrase
for this mission, everyone is reporting full moon joy.
We are keeping up with which targets the crew is tracking through their lunar targeting package.
They are just wrapping up their second.
Science integrity, another observation.
The window team commented on it.
Christina and I discussed a bit as it hurts from the solid
and intact crater is very smooth.
If you were a dirt road, it's very hard packed,
and then you go outside of it, and that outer crater,
that's the one that is older, it is a little rougher,
and more jagged and starts to get into the more loose looking terrain.
And the smooth interior also causes the craters that are inside
of the larger craters, the smaller craters,
that have really sharp edges, sharp distinct edges.
And just a general comment on that area,
here's from that whole area, the average albedo there is darker.
That is, I would say, six, I'm sorry, three.
And the average albino around Oriental and between Oriental
and Ohm, excluding the wedge, the darker wedge, is more on the 6-7.
And that they also seem to be different texturally.
Christina described it earlier around her sprung.
And then from her sprung toward Ohm, I'm sorry, toward Oriental,
there appears to be a frozen, a rippling pond,
frozen or like choppy waves when it's windy out choppy water and it freezes
instantly that's the texture if you walk down there barefoot it looks like it
would be hard on your feet like like lava after it's cool it would be
pokey except for right there at the center of Hertzsprung it looks paid
like a paved road nice and smooth
Victor, that's a wonderful description going from Paved Road to Ahlaba.
Reminds us of the Icelandic Islands.
Thanks for that.
And science, another, in the interior of the very intact, the interior of the intact crater
at Hertzbrough is albedo variation.
I think I heard one of the window crew maybe say color variation, but definitely albedo
variation.
There's lighter patches and slightly darker patches.
It's not swirling.
It's just patchy.
patchy it just has spots that are lighter and I would say a predominantly darker average area.
Great description Victor, thanks. Not for really just patchy, it's really helpful for us.
Really great descriptions coming from...
Science, the window team is hitting all the targets they are on the plan and starting the discussion of the Terminator.
And boy, I'm loving the Terminator. I think I know it's not purely a moon feature, but what it does to the features of the moon, to the terrain,
I've probably spent the most time describing into my recordings and thinking about and looking at the Terminator.
There's just so much magic in the Terminator, the islands of light, the valleys that would
look like black holes.
You'd fall straight to the center of the moon.
If you stepped in some of those, it's just so visually captivating that the Terminator
is the most striking thing that I've seen so far.
We've been loving your evocative descriptions, Victor.
You really are bringing us along with you and we're following along with visualizations
that pale in comparison to your descriptions.
Thanks.
Integrity Science, one more question on a status
of what the window team chose to observe for crew choice.
Window 2, talked about the battle off, looked for suspended dust and the terminator and
window 3 about the experience and about the three-dimensionality of the moon this close.
And another observation about oriental, I would say, is the features going off to the
southwest, the two large, almost like scratches in the surface. I don't know if they were
rays or canyons or collapsed lava tubes but two distinct features that are almost parallel
going off Southwest from Oriental Basin, they are the first thing that made me notice parallax
of our trajectory looking at it, Oriental.
That and in the inner walls of the east side of the crater rings, you really get
a sense that we're flying over something with elevation and terrain and they look
different from this orientation.
Love to hear it, Victor, and you had it that those chains are actually crater rays, secondary
craters formed from the formation of Oriental.
Yeah, speaking of crater rays, the crater rays that are going off to the north, to the
in the northwest that run off toward Hertzsprung and I believe toward Babelov.
I'm not looking at it right now, but those crater rays are very interesting.
They're all very small.
I know you've imaged this, but they're all small and they look like, you know,
a big impact, launched rocks and things that make smaller impacts down the way.
But something very interesting, and again, you can see there's an energy,
but some of them are parallel and then some of them converge toward the center
of Oriental. And then I think I even saw some that maybe diverged, which
and diverged within a convergent, which indicate multiple large impacts that
created a lot of secondary impact crater rays. Fantastic Victor, and I'll
note that we can infer that you're looking down at your freshly named
integrity crater, which is near the end of one of those beautiful crater
raised from Oriental. Thanks for the description.
Yeah, you're welcome. Integrity is easily identifiable with the naked eye from this point.
We've been hearing some great situation reports
from Victor Glover, the pilot of the Artemis II mission,
calling down to the science team,
letting them know what he is seeing.
And one of those things is Hurtsprung Basin.
If you look just to the right of the terminator,
that is the difference between light and darkness on the moon,
you can see what he's describing when he says Hurtsprung Basin
and how it looks a little bit paved in the middle there.
It's almost in the very center of the moon in this view,
coming from the Orion spacecraft
and a camera mounted on its solar array.
We are now four days, 23 hours and 23 minutes into the flight
of Artemis II and we are standing by for their lunar loss
of signal in about 43 minutes.
Again, the spacecraft will fly behind the moon
and during that time we won't have communication with them.
They will be out of reach of our deep space network.
However, we will regain communication
with them approximately 40, 4, 0 minutes later
when they come around the other side of the moon.
The crew aboard the spacecraft are currently discussing
of the terminator that difference between day and night.
The science team is interested in learning about the topography
and the color of the lunar surface.
And it's already been very interesting to hear
that they have seen colors like greens and browns
while looking at the moon.
Some of the questions that they are hoping the crew will
discuss are how do the quantities and sizes of craters
and mountains vary along the terminator.
And they are looking for the crew to describe the topography of features along or near the terminator.
They're also looking for more information on any color or tone variations.
And they're hoping that the crew will take images to illustrate their findings.
Glova reported earlier that the crew has missed none of their targets when they are photographing at the window.
We aren't hearing the conversations that the crew is having right now,
that these are being recorded to their personal computer devices,
PCDs, and those will be sent down to the science team.
Science team will have a conference with the crew tomorrow morning
to discuss their findings and experience
when looking at the moon today.
We have a few minutes left while the crew is discussing the Terminator.
And if you're just joining us, you're looking at a live view of the Moon, our Moon,
from the Orion spacecraft and a camera on its solar array.
Inside that spacecraft, four astronauts, Reid Wiseman, Victor Glover, Christina Cook,
and Jeremy Hansen, the first four people to fly around the Moon in over 50 years.
This is our Lunar Flyby Day, and the crew has already surpassed one record today.
The crew passed the Apollo 13 distance record at 1257 p.m. Central, 157 p.m. Eastern.
Canadian Space Agency astronaut Jeremy Hansen calling down that he hopes it's a record soon broken
by other explorers.
We are live in Artemis Mission Control in Houston, Texas, monitoring the flight of Artemis 2.
of the flight controllers here, each monitoring a different system aboard the Orion spacecraft.
Integrity Houston, we are ready for our cabin and window teams to swap again.
We have a 15-minute handover time here, and I have a couple of items I want to read up to you.
They'll require you to write something down on your kneeboards. So let me know when you're ready.
Okay Houston, we are ready.
Copy integrity.
First of all, once you start this next shift here, during this lunar observation shift
we will begin our lunar LOF so you can expect a call from me a few minutes prior reminding
you.
And second of all, SIDO just sent us updated altitudes and METs for lunar closest approach
and max Earth altitude.
Let me know when you are ready to write those down.
They differ slightly from Optimus.
Thanks, Jenny. We are ready to copy.
Lunar closest approach will be at MET, five days, zero hours, 25 minutes, 34 seconds.
And the altitude will be 4,067 statute miles.
Earth Altitude will be at MET, five days, zero hours, two seven minutes, three nine seconds
with an altitude of 252,756 statute miles.
The crew really wants to ask for that in kilometers and in par six, but thank you for those.
That is great.
Thanks for that update.
I'll send Fido to work and I appreciate the metric.
Other than that, I have no new vehicle statuses to pass to you.
Enjoy your hand over time and we're looking forward to picking back up with you shortly.
Those words called from Capcom, Jenny Gibbons, CSA Astronaut.
and armist two backup crew member to the crew working aboard the Orion spacecraft.
Got a little bit of a view inside the cabin.
As you can see, it is very dark.
The crew has turned off the lights and the light that you were able to see is coming
through the window, a reflection of earth shine and from the moon.
The crew is moving into their next observation block meaning they are taking time to switch
cabin and window teams. We've had Reid Weisman and Jeremy Hansen at the windows taking pictures
and making annotations and recording some audio files that will be downlinked later to the science
team. Meanwhile, Victor Glover and Christina Cook were in the background serving as support.
They were also timelineed to enjoy a little bit of their midday meal.
Now that we are swapping positions, the support team becomes Reed Wiseman and Jeremy
Hansen. They will be in the background helping with SD card swaps as well as providing those
situational reports to the science team.
Victor Glover and Christina Cook
will be the astronauts at the window,
photographing and speaking into those PCDs,
portable computing devices,
about what they're seeing on the moon.
As you heard Capcom and Jenny Gibbons call to the crew,
this block is also when we will lose communications
with the crew.
that LOS or loss of signal scheduled to be less than 35 minutes from now.
We anticipate to be out of signal with them for about 40 minutes and we'll regain
that communication once they've flown around the other side of the moon.
Now even the crew, even though the crew will be flying behind the moon, their observation
period does not stop.
They will still be taking pictures and making annotations of what they are seeing.
They'll be looking for the limb of the moon, Earth set, and then the Vavilov crater,
which we have previously seen.
They'll swap positions at the window before moving
into a crew choice option.
They will get to pick things that are interesting to them
on the surface, take pictures,
and explain why they find them that way.
They'll also be looking for any impact flashes.
These are short-lived flashes
on the lunar surface caused by impact bombardment.
Just before Earthrise, the crew will be looking for lofted lunar dust.
This may be lofted just above the lunar surface, and we could only see it just before Earthrise along the dark western limb.
Any earth shine would illuminate potential lofted dust.
But once the crew is all the way around the Earth, the brightness of the Earth will wash out any of that dust they might be able to see.
These were based on observations from Apollo missions in orbital spacecraft.
And so we're very interested to see if the crew might be able
to capture some of that lunar dust today.
Following that lofted lunar dust target, the next will be Earthrise.
We will regain communications with the crew shortly after Earthrise.
There will be a short observation break period where the moon is not in view.
That's because we are also anticipating the crew seeing an eclipse today.
The moon won't be in view because the team here in Mission Control Houston will need to change the attitude of the spacecraft
spacecraft and ensure that it's solar arrays are gathering light from the sun
heading into that eclipse period. So we will have communication with the crew.
We just won't be able to see the moon.
However, we will have views during that eclipse time frame. During that time the
science team is looking to know they it will only be illuminated by Earth
shine at that point. So they want to know what the whole moon looks like overall, but they also
want the crew to look into deep space and potentially see if they can spot any planets.
Once the eclipse is over the lunar flyby period will have ended.
We are live through the whole thing, and even once Flyby is over today, we remain live 24-7 on NASA's YouTube.
Any other questions?
Go ahead.
I don't know if Catherine and Devin are still there, but if they are, I just wanted to let them know how much fun we're having out here.
It's extraordinary to be on the far side of the moon right now, just to see you hanging out there and looking back at the Earth.
And Ashley and Kailin, I know you're back in Canada,
but if you haven't any watching too,
just wanted to say hi to all you guys, love you guys,
and we'll be heading back your way shortly.
Thanks Jeremy, I hear they are watching
and your family is still here.
So thanks for passing that along.
This view inside the Orion spacecraft and it's a little hard to make out but on the left
there that is Jeremy Hansen just calling down some well wishes to his family joining
us in the viewing room and watching online.
Currently in the window are Victor Glover and Christina Cook.
They are taking pictures outside of the window as they are now in their fly-by observation block.
At this time, Reed Wiseman and Jeremy Hansen are serving as support crew members,
and they are also going to have an opportunity to enjoy their midday meal at this time.
On the lunch menu today for Reed Wiseman and Jeremy Hansen,
We have vegetarian chili, salmon, croquettes, chicken with peanut sauce, sweet and savory
kale, pickled beets, chocolate pudding, barbecue beef brisket, spaghetti and meat sauce, Italian
vegetables, butternut squash, candy coated chocolates, and maybe even a little bit of coffee.
And if you look closely you can see it looks like they are getting into some of their food
for the midday meal.
All of the food on the spacecraft is rehydratable.
We don't have an option for fresh food as there's not a refrigerated section of the
Orion spacecraft.
So, all of this food can either be rehydrated or eaten straight from the package, just depends
on what the food actually is.
And for food that needs to be rehydrated, there is information on each package of how
much water needs to fill that bag and what temperature it needs to be.
We are now four days, 23 hours and 39 minutes,
40 minutes actually, into the flight of Artemis 2,
the spacecraft now under 4,500 miles from the moon.
We are now also under 30 minutes away from loss of signal with the astronauts.
We will regain that communication about 40 minutes later.
They will still be photographing the moon and documenting what they're seeing while they're behind the moon.
And we especially look forward to potential Earth set and Earth rise views.
As you can see on the left side of your screen we are streaming this solar array
camera view throughout the flyby and the science team also plans to capture an
occasional still photo with the solar array intermittently perhaps one every
eight to ten minutes. Still photos represent the highest resolution imagery
from those GoPro cameras. So starting five minutes before Earthset and loss of
signal the science team will capture a series of photos one every 30 seconds
to include EarthSET all the way through five minutes after Earthrise and acquisition of signal.
In order to capture these frequent photos, the solar array camera that we were streaming will need to switch to
time-lapse photo mode. So during this time, the streaming video quality won't be as sharp as you have it right now,
but we want to ensure that the science team captures the data they need during these time frames.
And we really look forward to seeing those higher resolution images once they're available.
But with the view you are seeing right now, we are sharing bandwidth
on the Orion spacecraft with every system
that is keeping the spacecraft powered and the crew alive,
especially the environmental control and life support system.
As this is the first flight with crew, this is also the first flight
of a life support system, keeping the crew healthy and safe on the way
to the moon and the way home.
On the timeline, we're getting towards the end of the cabinet and window team swap period,
but it looks like our astronauts, Victor Glover and Christina Cook,
are already photographing the moon outside of those windows.
The next target is Ohm Crater.
And this is something that they have photographed previously
during the flyby.
This is a small, complex crater with a prominent ray system.
And as referenced earlier, it's the size of the eye
of the Sahara.
That eye of the Sahara is a feature in Mauritania.
Seeing this crater more than once throughout the flyby allows the crew
to photograph it at different lighting conditions.
Those different lighting conditions help expose different portions of the target
and can help the science team learn a little bit more about how it formed
and what it is today.
Again, this view inside the spacecraft as the crew continues photographing the moon
outside their windows.
They have turned the lights off to allow them to better get photos
of the moon preventing any reflections from coming in from the spacecraft.
We expect the crew to be targeting Ulm Crater for another six minutes or so before they move
into a discussion of the limb.
Now the science team has asked for a science rep or situation report during that time,
so we hope to hear calls from the crew on what they are observing.
If you've been following along, at the start of the day, we did have much more of the moon visible.
And even just an hour or so ago, we could see about half of the moon.
We are now continuing to see more of the far side in that darkness where the moon is not reflecting light from the sun.
Earlier, we were also able to see some of those darker portions, that old lava flow that we
often see on the near side of the Moon and that we can all see from Earth.
That has mostly gone away.
We are now just seeing very little of Oriental that's down to the bottom right of the Moon.
you can see just a small dark portion near the limb.
We are now about 18 minutes away from loss of signal
with the Orion crew.
Again, we use the deep space network to communicate
with the crew members when they are this far from Earth.
This is the first mission since Apollo
when we have had humans on the deep space network.
As you recently heard, Capcom and Jenny Gibbons call to the crew.
We expect their closest approach to the moon to be at MET or mission elapsed time of five
days 25 minutes and 34 seconds. At that time, their altitude would be 4,067
statute miles above the Earth's surface.
Just over two minutes later, they will reach their maximum distance from Earth.
At mission elapsed time, five minutes, five days, 27 minutes and 39 seconds. The
The altitude at that time would be 252,756 statute miles.
These are our latest numbers and we'll make sure to verify
and confirm those once those milestones have been achieved.
Obviously, we will be without communication
to the spacecraft at that time.
So once we regain communication, we will make sure
to find out those numbers and report those to you.
Checking in on the lunar targeting package, the crew is now in their discussion of the
limb, seeing the limb of the moon, that illuminated part, currently at the windows taking photos
and making annotations are Victor Glover and Christina Cook.
We are expecting loss of signal in about 13 minutes.
We will regain that signal with the crew about 40 minutes later.
The milestone worth mentioning that this day marks the first time in more than 50 years
that humans will observe the moon directly.
A critical opportunity to practice how lunar science will be conducted during future Artemis missions.
I've continued to reference the lunar targeting package throughout this broadcast,
which is the primary tool guiding the crew observations, and that consists of two key components.
The first of those is the Lunar Geography Review,
which helped the astronauts study major lunar features
in advance.
That also helped them learn to orient themselves during the fly
by.
The Lunar Targeting Plan provides a detailed timeline
of observation targets, background science context
and specific instructions for the picture the crew should take
and verbal descriptions of what will be helpful
to the science team reviewing those pictures later.
That's what we've been tracking real time
and what the crew is using right now to keep
up with their next milestones.
Integrity Houston, 10 minutes until the LOS will take a snappy,
sit-rep from the cabin if you have one.
Okay, Jenny, that game, we missed most of that, but just a 10-minute warning, is that what you're saying?
Good morning for the LOS, and I'll take a quick sit-up from the cabin, please.
All right, cabin is still full of excitement.
We've got Christina in window two, Mike in window three.
Reed's actually been trying to get some images out of the docking tunnel.
to see the Earth and the moon and part of the moon of the docking tunnel, which is pretty
good. And I'm just grabbing some footage right now with our interior cameras.
Copy, Jeremy. We'd like to know what camera read is using and also the status of window
one looks like there might be a shot removed.
Okay, Reid was using the Z9 and the t-shirt's route is still on window one but we took the camera out of it.
So maybe that's sweet noticing but when I looked in there I saw a lot of sunlight reflecting around.
Copy. That makes a lot of sense to us, Jeremy. I want to remind you, coming up on this LOS,
it will take sit reps in the blind. And as more and more of the moon is in darkness,
you will take any report you have on impact flashes.
All right, Jenny, you'll have to say again your last.
There's a lot of conversation here, and I was on the other side of the cabin,
so I missed all of it.
Look out for impact flashes and we'll take it, it rips in the blind.
Okay, impact flashes, it rips in the blind. We got it.
And yeah, just so you understand what's going on with window one, there is light coming through the outer hall from window two into the inside of window one, if that makes sense.
I can see the inside of the vehicle when I look between the two planes of glass.
Copy.
You're getting your first live look at Orion, the Moon, and the Earth.
Everyone in this picture.
This is a live view from the Orion spacecraft.
Currently aboard Orion, four crew members, Reed Wiseman,
Victor Glover, Christina Cook, and Jeremy Hansen.
And on the Earth, all of us, all of humanity.
You can see the moon is starting to get a little bit dimmer
as the astronauts are going to pass behind it.
Now, six minutes and 26 seconds away from that loss of signal.
Again, we will be out of communication with them
for about 40 minutes until they come around the other side
of the moon and we can reestablish contact.
Thank you.
Integrity Houston, you are six minutes from your 40 minutes lunar flyby LOS.
From all of us, it's a privilege to witness you carrying the fire past our farthest reach.
Thank you.
Godspeed.
Thank you for that, Jenny, and thank you to all of you for allowing us the immense privilege
to be on this journey together.
It's quite amazing.
And as we go on this journey, thinking about the NASA mission to explore the unknown and
air and space, to innovate for the benefit of humanity and to inspire the world through
discovery.
And as you've gone along this journey with us, hopefully we're doing just those things.
And as we get close to the nearest point to the moon and farthest point from Earth,
As we continue to unlock the mysteries of the cosmos, I would like to remind you of one
of the most important mysteries there on earth, and that's love.
Christ said in response to what was the greatest command, that it was to love God with all
that you are.
And he also, being a great teacher, said, the second is equal to it, and that is to
love your neighbor as yourself.
So, as we prepare to go out of radio communication,
we're still able to feel your love from Earth and to all of you down there on Earth
and around Earth.
We love you from the moon.
Houston copies.
We'll see you on the other side.
We will see you on the other side.
to the moon.
Plain words from NASA astronaut Victor Glover and a little bit of a love letter from the
the other side of the moon all the way to Earth.
Glover touching on the teachings of Jesus,
including to love your neighbor as yourself.
We are now less than three minutes away
from loss of signal with the Orion astronauts.
The Artemis II crew will be out of signal
for about 40 minutes as they are on the other side
of the moon, continuing their work,
photographing the lunar surface,
And they will reemerge and we will also get this view on the other side.
Just about a minute and a half now until we lose communication with the astronauts aboard
Orion on the Artemis-2 mission.
Now five days and six minutes since their launch on April 1st.
Again, we'll be out of communication for about 40 minutes.
And this really beautiful view of a crescent moon and a crescent earth.
How great thou art.
30 seconds now until we expect loss of signal.
And we have confirmation of loss of signal of the Orion spacecraft as it flies behind the moon.
We expect to regain communications with them for in another approximately 40 minutes.
This was expected as their spacecraft is now out of direct line of sight with Earth
and behind the moon.
And this is a poignant moment as it's the first time
in over 50 years that we have humans completely unreachable
by anyone else on Earth.
No matter how distant or secluded,
we could reach anyone living on Earth.
But while the crew flies behind the moon,
it's simply impossible to make contact with them.
This is a live view inside the science evaluation room here
at Johnson Space Center
and just down the hall from Mission Control.
This team has been monitoring the science or the flyby all day as the team has continued capturing targets on the lunar surface.
We even got to see this team in action as they were helping the astronauts identify some of the features they were seeing on the moon but not expecting.
There will be a couple of milestones during this loss of signal.
The first will be when the astronauts make their closest approach of the moon at MET,
five days, 25 minutes, and 34 seconds.
When we expect they'll be 4,067 statute miles above the lunar surface.
Their maximum Earth altitude will be reached just two minutes later at five days, 27
minutes in 39 seconds. The altitude should be approximately 252,756
statute miles. Once those milestones are reached and we have confirmation, we
will report the official numbers.
Throughout the Artemis-2 mission, astronaut voice, images, video,
and vital mission data must traverse thousands of miles carried
on signals from NASA's powerful communications systems,
the Nearspace Network and the Deep Space Network.
Let's learn a little bit more.
NASA's Artemis-2 will send four astronauts
around the Moon, preparing humanity
for a long-term lunar presence and future journeys to Mars.
Enabling communication and navigation for this test flight
are NASA's near-space network and deep-space network.
With antennas around the world and a fleet of relay satellites,
the networks will deliver vital data to and from Earth
through all phases of the mission.
The networks are seamlessly integrated
at NASA's Johnson Space Center in Houston, Texas,
where mission control coordinates the network handovers.
These transfers represent a delicate dance
between the two networks, exchanging support
as the mission shoots toward the moon.
On the launch pad and during their early orbit phases,
NASA's Orion spacecraft and Space Launch System rocket
will rely on communications and tracking services
from the near space network.
After its translator injection burn,
the deep space network's global array of antennas
will serve as Orion's primary communication support
during lunar orbit.
As the mission journeys farther into space and away from Earth,
signal strength weakens and bandwidth
is concerned for crew communications.
The astronauts will have a near constant connection to Earth,
ensuring their safety on a journey farther into space
than ever before.
We say near constant because as Orion goes behind the moon,
a planned loss in communications will occur.
The deep space network will be standing by to reacquire
the signal as Orion reappears.
The Artemis II mission also provides an opportunity to test new capabilities.
Using laser links, NASA will periodically transmit Orion data to showcase the benefits laser communications could have for future human spaceflight missions.
The data from Orion, sent by radio signals or laser links, is massive.
The mission is gathering images, data, and video, while also generating details about mission health and crew voice files.
that data gets processed here on Earth, where systems compress it for efficiency.
In the future, we'll upgrade these systems on Earth so that image and video clarity
improve with each moon mission.
With the Artemis II test flight, we're evaluating the communications infrastructure
that will help carry us into the future as we explore the moon and journey forward
to Mars.
We are now about 33 minutes until we expect to regain
communications with the astronauts aboard Orion. And in the meantime, I've got Dr. Kelsey Young,
Artemis Science Flight Operations Lead here with us. Thanks for joining me, Kelsey.
Thanks for having me. This is such an exciting day. Oh, no kidding. It has been so cool to hear
you communicating directly with the crew. And I know that you have been preparing for this for
years. So I'm so excited for you and for your team. So just to get into that background
a little bit, tell me about your background and what you've been doing on console.
My background is as a field geologist.
Actually, I studied impact trattering in the field for my PhD,
so all these descriptions of impact traders have me just absolutely swooning.
How I got into this, though, is, you know, during my PhD, I got an internship at NASA
and ultimately never left to integrate science into flight operations.
So we developed the Science Officer Console for which this is the first mission we're supporting.
We developed the Science Evaluation Room that's right upstairs,
And so it's so gratifying to see this operation structure come to fruition, especially on a daylight today.
I would have to imagine so. And we've got a great view of the science evaluation room right now.
Is there anything that has stood out to your team so far?
Absolutely. So as you might have heard in some of the press briefings and content that, you know,
we've been putting out color and Albedo were really exciting targets for us.
We've heard several amazing color descriptions so far.
just to highlight maybe one of them.
We heard about greenish and brownish hues
near Aristarchus, which is actually a feature
that we can see here from the near side.
And those greenish hues could actually tell us something
about the volcanic evolution of that area.
So you can bet that the science team
is gonna be prioritizing downlinking those images
and the crew audio that we didn't hear
that went into those recordings
to learn a little bit more.
Wow, that is fascinating.
I was hearing those colors
and very interested just from a personal standpoint
because looking at the moon from 250,000 miles away,
we don't see green or brown.
So just hearing that them being so close
and getting to see that, fascinating.
And I know it's very exciting for you.
So what are you expecting to see
in the upcoming portion of the flyby?
The upcoming portion is actually gonna be really exciting.
So right now, as we speak,
while folks in the room are kind of taking their,
their stretch breaks and everything,
the crew are still hard at work.
They still have targets to image and describe
during this LOS.
But when we come out, the first thing, of course,
we're going to hear about is Earthrise.
We're really looking forward to hearing
about the cruise experience with something
that we can connect with.
And that Apollo 8 brought us such amazing images from.
But then we start to get into describing the Terminator,
as well as looking for things like lofted dust, which
tell us about the modern lunar environment.
Then the vehicle is going to orient away from the moon
for an hour and then pivot back
for the eclipse observations, which
a whole different set of science observations that we're really looking forward to.
It's kind of nice that the crew will get a little break in there because they have been
hitting it hard today with photos and videos and annotations.
What are you hoping that the crew sees coming up?
Is it that lunar dust?
Oh my goodness, that's a hard question to answer.
I mean, we've already gotten such great descriptions.
I mean, the Terminator seems to just be like one of their favorite things to look
at and describe.
So I feel like, you know, that was something we were looking forward to.
I feel like we've really gotten some great descriptions.
So, absolutely, I'm looking to the human moment of Earthrise.
Lofted dust is an exciting one, and lofted dust will be a target for them right around
the time of Earthrise, but again, in the eclipse period.
So I'm really looking forward to seeing, I mean, they've already highlighted just in
the course of their flyby so far how the moon has changed, and this is going to be
an even more dramatic change to go from their end of this kind of lunar illuminated
piece of the flyby into the eclipse timeframe and I can tell you they're
going to be experiencing a very different moon during that time and I can't wait
to hear what their observations are. Yeah that's absolutely fascinating and
what a privilege that we get to do that on this mission because that's
not always the case if we had launched on a different day other than April
1st or 2nd we wouldn't have gotten to see that eclipse is that right? That's
correct April 1st and 2nd I will say you know I was asked a lot in the
weeks leading up to the launch, well what's your favorite day? And my answer
truly was there is no bad day to launch to the moon. We were gonna get great
science out of it no matter what, but it's a really neat opportunity to you know
bring the Sun into the picture, bring different planetary bodies into the
picture while still literally keeping the moon in center stage. Fascinating.
So what differences are we looking for at each site? We're hearing a lot of
different terms, we're looking at craters, we're looking at mauret. What
the differences that you're hoping to see?
We do have, as you highlight, kind of different prompts for each target.
That's what they're looking at in their lunar targeting plan, which I know you've been showing.
And we have even different prompts for the person with the, you know, the really long
lens on the camera versus the people with the unaided eye.
And you've heard the crew talk about, oh my goodness, when I go from one to the
other, I can really detect different nuances.
And that's something that we experienced in simulations, but hearing them actually,
you know, see it for real has been really gratifying.
But we're looking for different things based on the target.
Sometimes we're looking for color.
Sometimes we're looking for texture.
For the terminator, we're looking at kind of
what texture and morphologies pop out to you
and what kind of diversity you see along the terminator.
You've heard, you know, Victor especially
makes some comments about future impacts for exploration.
So already I think that there are descriptions
in this first part of the flyby
have told us something scientifically,
but also about future surface missions.
Well, oh, it was so interesting to hear Victor talking
about he was imagining in his mind's eye
being down on the surface and walking around.
That was very cool to hear.
And when we're thinking about targets,
I know some of them are determined based on the launch day
because that turn is the lunar illumination.
So the ones that we're looking at today,
how and why were these selected?
Such a wonderful question.
This really gets at some, like at the heart
of some of our really highest priority science questions.
Illumination conditions is a big one, right?
So of course we need the targets
that we're interested on the lunar feature
to be illuminated by the sun in order to view them.
But the timing in which they see them during the flyby
enables us to ask different questions.
So you heard in the pre-flyby crew conference
talking about, well the same pair, Reed and Jeremy,
we'll get to actually look at Glushko crater twice
and that looking at it from different illumination angles
allows us to understand that feature better
and connect color and albedo with topography and morphology.
Then you have other craters where you want to look at it
with the sun shining on it obliquely versus straight on.
And that tells you something different
about the scientific objective that
drove the target being on the targeting
plan of the first place.
We've talked a little bit with the viewers today
about how what the crew is able to capture
in this short time frame of those craters
in different lighting conditions
could take years for something robotic to be able to do based on attitude maneuvers and
where the sun is at.
So can you just talk a little bit about the importance of having both the robotic operation
and having the crew?
Absolutely.
We definitely don't want to minimize the impact of orbiting spacecraft.
Lunar reconnaissance orbiters, the one that's often referenced, you know, data
from LRO and its payloads have really been instrumental in getting us frankly to
this point for Artemis II and future missions.
But the human experience, the crew observations that we've already been hearing about, it
is such a perfect complement to the orbiting spacecraft data because they are able to have
this unique perspective.
They are far enough away where they can make these contextual observations.
You've already heard it.
How many times have we heard the crew and their science at Repsay?
If I track this feature from all the way up here in the Northern Hemisphere down
to the Southern Hemisphere, here are comparisons I can make.
right there is not something we had the ability to do with the Apollo missions and it allows
just literally in the blink of an eye to synthesize observations that it would take, you know, a
really significant effort to coordinate with different orbiting platforms and they're making
it like that.
Wow.
It has been a very, very exciting to hear all of their calls so far.
And so, I've heard they were able to capture every single target so far too.
Is that correct?
I think that's correct.
important also to remember that and I know the science team is anxiously
awaiting this we've been hearing from the crew members who are not at the
forward windows right the those crew who are you know really in the thick of the
observations they are recording minutes long observations per target on their
crew tablets we will be getting those down starting here in a couple hours and
that's going to contain really meaty science information that we haven't
heard live yet and that's going to form the basis of my conversation with
them tomorrow morning where we're going to have a really deep dive into the science and
absolutely nerd out about what they were able to do today.
One of the most gratifying things for me today is hearing multiple crew members say,
thank you for putting the discussion times in the targeting plan, because when we have
had the ability to put multiple brains on a problem, we have elevated each other.
And I'm looking forward to them, you know, sleeping on it overnight and then us actually
being able to really truly have an elevated science discourse tomorrow.
Well, we're looking forward to it too and I cannot wait to hear everything that you guys get to learn overnight from some of those audio recordings
and just everything that they'll be able to share tomorrow. So Kelsey, I know you're very busy.
You've done a great job today and thank you so much for joining us for this interview.
Thanks for having me. It's such an exciting day.
We are now expecting acquisition of signal in about 24 minutes.
As a reminder, the Orion spacecraft has flown around the other side of the moon
where they are out of contact with our deep space network.
And we've just heard confirmation here in Mission Control Houston that we have reached the closest
point of our destination to the moon.
At MET, five days, 25 minutes and 34 seconds, and we anticipate the spacecraft's altitude
is approximately 4,067 statute miles above the moon.
We're continuing to track what the crew is doing while around the other side of the moon.
They are continuing to take pictures of the Earth, sorry, of the moon, the Earth now out
of sight.
What they are in right now is a crew choice event.
The science team has encouraged them
to find interesting features on the surface,
to take photos of those,
and describe why they were interesting.
Something else that they'll be looking toward next,
just momentarily, will be impact flashes.
They've got a few minutes allotted
to look at the darkest portions of the moon.
They're interested in short-lived flashes
on the lunar surface,
because these would be caused by impact bombardment.
After their impact flash targeting, the team is interested
in if the crew can see lofted lunar dust.
This would only be visible just before Earthrise.
Now, 20 minutes until we expect to regain communications
with integrity in the astronauts for Artemis II.
We're live in Mission Control Houston at NASA's Johnson Space Center, but there's a team
over 750 miles away also monitoring today's operations.
And of course, just like us, they are in LOS or loss of signal with the spacecraft.
This is LUCA, the Lunar Utilization Control Area.
It's joined by Lisa, the Lander Engineering Support Area,
which are twin control rooms that will support missions
and operations in lunar orbit or on the moon's surface
in real time at NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center
in Huntsville, Alabama.
The Luca and Lisa are right next to each other
in just a short walk away
from the SLS Engineering Support Center,
which is used during launch.
And the POIC, where science
on the International Space Station is monitored.
Luca primarily supports Artemis Science Operations,
while Lisa will provide engineering support
for landing astronauts on the Moon.
During this mission, Artemis II, teams in Aluka will use the facility
to support first-of-its-kind science operations
to better understand the deep space effects of microgravity
and radiation on the crew's physiology, immune systems,
and ability to complete various tasks.
The data from these science operations will inform future
crewed flights to the Moon.
For future crewed missions to the Moon, members
of the NASA Human Landing System Mission Insights Support Team.
A group of engineers, safety leads, flight operations experts
and technical authorities will work in the LISA.
There they will monitor lander systems in real time and be involved
in key decision making processes throughout the mission.
Teams are using the LISA during Artemis II
to observe mission operations and using the opportunity to inform
and prepare for future crewed landings to the moon's surface.
We now expect to regain communications with the astronauts aboard Orion in about 17 minutes.
In the meantime, a little overview of how our crew members flying by the lunar far side
at an altitude of between 4,000 and 9,000 miles are testing the capabilities of the Orion capsule.
Artemis II visualization lead, Ernie Wright, has simulated views of the flyby using detailed
topographic maps of the lunar terrain and photorealistic lighting scenarios.
The Artemis II crew members have been using these visualizations to prepare for this
historic mission, which is paving the way for future exploration of the moon's surface
and beyond.
So the most exciting thing to me about Artemis II is just the return to the moon.
We haven't been there in 50 years.
Human eyes are going to see parts of the moon that haven't been seen by anyone before.
It also recommits us to exploring the solar system in a way that we haven't in a long
time.
And I think it provides an opportunity for younger generations to understand the excitement
of doing that kind of exploration.
Artemis is our return to the moon after 50 years.
The emphasis of Artemis is going to be, first of all, science,
but second of all, learning to sustain a presence on a world.
First on the moon, but we're hoping that that's a stepping stone
to Mars and other destinations in the solar system eventually.
Artemis 2 will be a flyby mission. It's not going to land.
We're testing all of the technology that we've created
we've created for flying to the moon since Apollo.
A lot of systems have been modernized
and we need to make sure that all of those work.
The astronauts will be looking out the window
at parts of the moon that have never been seen
by human eyes before.
They will be flying by the moon in an altitude
that's much higher than Apollo's orbits.
And so they will see the entire disc of the moon,
including areas that are closer
to both the North and South Pole
that astronauts from Apollo never saw.
All of that depends on the lighting, which we really won't know until launch day.
But we can practice with different lighting scenarios.
It's hard for people to sort of picture that in their mind.
If you can make a visualization of it, show them a movie,
that helps everybody choose the targets and also practice aiming at those targets.
The astronauts have actually been looking at these visualizations through the lens of the camera
and practicing aiming at the various targets.
This is a map of the surface of the moon obviously, but it shows what the Apollo astronauts
could see in sunlight while they were in orbit.
The brighter parts are the parts that they could see.
The darker parts, like this entire area here and places that are farther north and south,
are places that they couldn't see in sunlight, either because it was nighttime there or
because it was beyond the horizon of the astronauts.
All of the Apollo flights orbited the moon at a distance of about 110 kilometers.
Because the astronauts were flying at such low altitude, their horizon was actually quite
close and they couldn't see the north and south poles.
And this whole area over here was not in sunlight at the time.
And it includes this amazing impact feature here called Oriental.
Oriental is a very large impact feature.
It's about 650 kilometers wide.
It's got multiple rings.
These are rings that form like ripples in a pond from the impact, but of course it's
on a huge scale.
The middle of Oriental has that sort of dark basalt lava covering it like the dark spots
that we see on the near side.
It's one of the biggest ones that's more on the far side than near.
So seeing it with human eyes and sort of picking out features that maybe you don't
even see in robotic cameras, is an important goal for the mission.
This live view in the Science Evaluation Room, or the SER, here at Johnson Space Center in
Houston, Texas, just down the hall, from where we're at in the Artemis Mission Control
room, teams continuing to monitor the flyby.
The crew continues their observations of the moon even though they are out of touch with
Earth.
We expect to hear from them in 12 minutes and 26 seconds.
Again, this is approximately 40 minutes loss of signal while they are out of reach
of the deep space network.
Right now they are imaging or attempting to image lofted lunar dust.
Throughout our coverage we've talked a lot about the science and engineering behind today's
lunar flyby, but we also spoke to the crew about what the moon means to them and how
they see its place in human history.
I remember being a little kid lying in bed at night and just looking out of the moon and whatever phase it was in, I was thinking,
hey, my friends that lived like 20 miles away, they can probably look out and see the same exact moon.
And then when I was in the Navy and I would look out of the moon and I'd be halfway around the planet, I would think,
man, my brother can see that moon where he is and he's halfway around the planet from where I am.
And it's a connection of life on Earth. We can all look up and see that moon.
moon. It represents history. It is a witness plate. Everything that's ever happened to the moon
is still written on the moon. There's no processes of wind or change in the earth, geologic processes
like we have here that change it. And something that's been telling and can read out the story of
its own evolution, there's something beautiful about that. I've also learned from my indigenous
mentors that they refer to the moon as Grandmother Moon.
So you've probably heard of Mother Earth.
They use Grandmother Moon because the Grandmother Moon
is responsible for the water in their community.
The Grandmothers sort of protect the water source,
just like the moon moves the water around the planet,
affects the tides.
It's something that represents something different
for each individual culture around the planet.
And that's really neat because we all share
that same moon in the night sky.
We all have seen the same side of the moon
in different lighting conditions our whole lives.
And so it seemed very familiar to us,
but it's also kind of unknown.
When we get up close, some of the imagery
that we'll get to describe and to share with people
will be very unique.
And that nature, both of those things being true
about this one entity that we all know
just is really special.
It's just the epitome of a symbol of both something
that's in each of our hearts,
but this also represents exploration and reaching.
We're looking at a live view inside Artemis Mission Control here at Johnson Space Center
in Houston, Texas.
We are currently out of contact with the Artemis II crew.
This was a planned or not really a planned but a tracked loss of signal that occurs when
the crew flies behind the moon.
We use the deep space network to communicate with the crew and when they are behind the
moon they are out of reach of that deep space network.
And when you consider our non-stop communications during the time in which we live, this is
even more striking.
For the Artemis II crew, they're only currently communicating with each other.
Now, we expect to regain those communications
in under nine minutes from now,
and we also are hopeful for a view of Earthrise.
Despite being out of communication,
the crew is continuously capturing imagery
of their predetermined lunar targets.
Now about seven minutes, 25 seconds until we anticipate regaining communications with
the Artemis II crew aboard Orion.
In the meantime, Artemis II Lunar Science Deputy Lead Marie Henderson has trained these
astronauts to capture and document their views of the lunar surface for all of us
to enjoy back here on Earth.
I cannot wait to hear their voices when they get to the far side of the moon and I can hear
them talk about seeing the moon out their window.
I try to imagine it now and just I tear up thinking about it.
Oh, now I gotta hold on a second.
We have human eyeballs connected to wonderfully smart brains our astronaut friends have.
They are going to be able to observe the moon in multiple different ways.
They can use their eyes, they'll look through their camera and snap pictures and just looking
out the window getting that human experience.
But during Apollo, the astronauts were so much closer to the lunar surface.
Our astronauts are going to be doing a flyby at a higher altitude, so they're going to
be able to see the whole moon as a lunar disk on the lunar far side.
That's a brand new unique perspective that humans haven't been able to look at before.
We are doing a lot of lunar geography training with them.
They have study sessions and quizzes they can do that are assigned to them.
You know, even if you're an astronaut, you still get homework, you actually get in the
mock-up.
In that enclosed physical space, we have to think through the hardware that they have,
the cameras, the computers, their microphones to make these observations.
There's four windows up front.
Through one of those windows, one of our astronauts will be using a Nikon D5 camera
with an 80 to 400 millimeter lens.
something that allows them to zoom in really far and actually take more detailed observations of
the surface. It's almost like looking through a pair of binoculars as well. It's just like being a
geologist out in the field. They're going, they're telling us what they're seeing, looking for colors,
textures, different morphologies, and comparing the region that we're having them look at to
the regions that are around them. We have a science team that is planning the targets
that are going to be observed putting them all on the timeline of how they're going to be observed
and then taking the first look at the data when it comes down. The Apollo astronauts were only on
the moon for 300 hours total and they only went to the equator. That's like going to places that
were safer landing sites and they only saw so little 300 hours total and so we have so much
more to explore and so much more to learn and we are the beginning of the next generation
and that gets to start being a part of these discoveries.
We are now four minutes and 28 seconds
until we expect to regain communications
with the astronauts flying aboard Orion
on the Artemis-2 mission.
They are now flying behind the moon.
While behind the moon at an MET, or mission elapsed time
of five days, 25 minutes and 34 seconds,
we expect this was the point in which they made their closest
approach, 4,067 statute miles above the lunar surface.
We're live in the Artemis Mission Control Room in Houston, but we are not the only room
monitoring today's flyby.
As you can see, this is the SIR, the Science Evaluation Room.
It's in the same building than just down the hall.
It's a multi-disciplinary science team supporting the Artemis II crew in real time,
including experts in lunar geology, impact cratering, volcanism, polar science, imaging,
and visualization.
You can see the SIR here, that's the Science Evaluation Room.
It's embedded within Mission Control to provide science input during live operations
like what we see today.
But additionally, the Science Mission Operations Room is a back room
that processes data, evaluates imagery, and supports rapid analysis.
We also have our science officer, Kelsey Young, here on console today.
She's serving as the primary interface between the science team
and the flight controllers, ensuring science priorities are represented
during mission execution.
Coming up on one minute and 36 seconds until we contact Orion.
Meanwhile aboard the spacecraft, the crew has continued executing their lunar flyby tasks.
As we discussed earlier today, these activities have been precisely time-lined
and this is the fourth of five blocks of time during which the crew will be observing the
the moon from Orion's windows.
At this time, pilot Victor Glover and mission specialist
Christina Cook are observing the moon at windows 2 and 3.
One crew member is in window 2 with a blue shroud over the
window, taking photos and using an 80 to 400 millimeter
zoom lens.
While the other astronauts in window 3 using their
portable computing device, also known as a PCD to make
annotations. And both of those crew members are making audio recordings of what they are seeing.
They are wearing headsets connected to their PCDs and those audio recordings are being sent
to the science team tonight. We are not hearing those live. However, we have been hearing quite
a lot of great descriptions from the crew who have been serving as the support. Right now,
the support team members are Reed Wiseman and Jeremy Hansen. Those team members are providing
science SIP reps, situation reports, calling down a few times each hour to discuss what they're
observing. And even though we're out of contact with them right now, they are still conducting
those science SIP reps as they'll be available once they come back around the moon.
The situation reports include how the crews positioned any missed targets or anything
unexpected they saw. They're also including lunar target descriptions, any hardware issues,
and their emotions and reactions.
Again, we are standing by to acquire signal from the Orion spacecraft.
Thank you.
and the Artemis Mission Control Room at Johnson Space Center getting our preliminary contact
with Orion, that acquisition of signal coming after a 40-minute loss of signal during which
the crew was flying behind the moon out of contact with anyone on Earth.
We are getting our first views from Orion after the loss of signal.
Orion has come back around the other side of the moon
and that little crescent that you see is Earth, over 252,000 miles away.
With this transit complete, Lunar Flyby continues
but Orion has also technically begun its journey home.
Right now the crew are getting a few moments to enjoy and take photos of
Earthrise for themselves and we expect to contact them shortly but we do have
good signal coming from Orion.
This view from inside the Orion spacecraft all four astronauts now back
on the other side of the moon and in contact with us on Earth.
Their tasks for lunar flyby did not stop as they went behind the moon
and out of contact with us.
We anticipate during that time they were attempting
to image some impact flashes, short-lived flashes on the lunar surface
which would be caused by impact bombardment
and potentially even a lofted lunar dust.
Right now, of course, they are getting pictures of Earthrise.
After this target, they will get a short observation break.
It's about an hour long, actually.
You've been integrity, cop check.
Integrity, we have you loud and clear, humming.
So Houston, we have you the same and it is so great to hear from Earth again.
To Asia, Africa and Oceana, we are looking back at you.
We hear you can look up and see the moon right now.
We see you too.
When we burned this burn towards the moon, I said that we do not leave Earth, but we choose it.
And that is true.
We will explore.
We will build ships.
We will visit again.
We will construct science outposts, we will drive rovers, we will do radio astronomy,
we will found companies, we will boaster industry, we will inspire,
but ultimately we will always choose Earth, we will always choose each other.
Integrity from Earth, our single system, fragile and interconnected, we copy.
Those of us that can are looking back.
We are happy to say we copy.
Those first communications back with the astronauts aboard Orion.
Christina Cooke calling back to what she said just before a translator injection burn.
With this burn, we do not leave Earth, we choose it.
The Translunar Injection Burn served as not only what put them on this trajectory to fly
around the Moon, but what also committed them to splashing down in the Pacific Ocean
on Flight Day 10.
At this time the crew is entering an observation break.
We expect this to last about an hour and it's probably a welcomed break following their
very, very busy day, taking pictures, making annotations, making audio recordings and communicating
all of the wonderful things that they are seeing on the moon.
This observation break is also partially due to the fact that we will be entering
an eclipse later.
This will be the first solar eclipse that humans have seen from the moon.
The astronauts will need to wear eclipse glasses for the first two minutes until the sun is
completely covered by the moon, and then they have additional targets that the science
team is hoping that they will photograph.
We will have communications with them during that eclipse timeframe.
Because of that eclipse, Orion's attitude must be changed right now so that its
Solar arrays are in the sun.
This will help it charge the batteries needed to power it
through that eclipse time frame.
This view on your screen is a visualization.
The spacecraft now 4,224 miles away from the moon,
and that number will now continue to grow.
While the number of distance from Earth, 252,699 miles
will continue to shrink.
all the way until our crew is back home.
Again, we are MET, mission alofts time, five days and 58 minutes since the launch of Artemis
2.
We have re-established communications with the crew and the Orion spacecraft, now entering
a little bit of a break while they are out of visibility
or the moon is out of their visibility.
The spacecraft will be reoriented to view the moon ahead
of an upcoming eclipse.
This current attitude maneuver helps charge the solar arrays
and batteries aboard Orion that will power them
through the eclipse.
Integrity Houston, in mission control, all of your flight controllers and your flight
director have flipped their Artemis II patches around.
We are earthbound and ready to bring you home.
A very special moment just now in mission control ahead of the cruise flight to Kennedy Space
Center and during one of their last sims or simulations here, they visited the mission
control team in Artemis Mission Control in Houston and brought us each a patch.
Everyone in the flight control room has had these on their signifiers at their console.
On one side of the patch that you've probably seen is the moon with the Earth behind it.
Now that we are behind, we've passed behind the moon and we are returning home, the flight
control team has instructed everyone in the room to switch their patch around so that
the Earth is closer and the moon is behind us.
We are really looking forward to seeing the Artemis II crew and the Capcom, Genie
Gibbons did call that update up to the crew that the flight control team here has
Turn their patches around, as was instructed by the crew during that last sim,
and we are counting down the days until they get home.
They are now five days, one hour and three minutes mission last time
into the Artemis II mission.
Thank you.
me here in the room, Artemis Mission Control.
I have Angela Garcia, Artemis II, Science Officer.
Thanks for being here, Angela.
It is an honor to be here.
What a day.
Everyone's been buzzing.
I can't contain myself, so it's been a really awesome day.
So you're sitting on console at the Science Console now.
Have you been in the sir earlier today?
There's a lot going on.
So I went here first, then I'm going to go there after.
All right integrity we hear you that was a little clipped
but I think we have a better link now we experienced some blockage
from a solar array we moved it and we are in bias tail-to-sun.
Okay, Heeson, you're coming in loud and clear and copy.
We're in bystander's side now.
A-Firm and integrity, just so you know, we did not hear your response once we flipped
our patches.
Jeremy, we heard you call down, but you were eclipsed and then we briefly lost calm.
I'm going to call you back.
Okay, copy that.
We were just excited that we got to sharing that, that you do the MAR and Mission Control
with your patches around, and that that side of the patch is getting to see the light
of day.
Thanks for sharing that with us.
My pleasure.
Our pleasure.
Okay, Angela, so can you tell me a little bit about your role supporting Artemis 2 and the science preparation for the mission?
Yes, so I'm one of the three science officers. So Kelsey's been on console all day. I'll take over kind of closer to the end of the day.
And then Trevor Graff is on the planning shift. And so it's the three of us in this 24-hour cycle supporting the mission.
And so the science officer console is a brand new console to mission control and it's not
every day that you get a new discipline incorporated into mission control.
So it's been such a significant milestone for us.
And it's just a testament to the commitment that the Flight Operations Directorate and
NASA have that they're going to be integrating science and maximizing science about Artemis.
So it's really exciting.
And then the science preparation.
Yeah, so I'm on the operations team, but I'm also on the training team.
So all the incredible training and shout outs that you've gotten today, it warms my heart.
It warms everybody's heart in the science evaluation room.
I promise you that.
But all the classroom training, the field training, the mission simulations, we were
part of all of it.
And that is what we did to get the crew to be there, a part of the science team.
They're the forefront, that nice edge,
and they're just been doing such a great job today.
I know, I imagine that you have to be pretty proud of them.
Their reports have been fantastic.
So I would like to know a little bit about
how you have developed procedures for this crew.
What kind of science activities
are they carrying out inside the spacecraft?
Yeah, so the procedure development
has been a unique challenge.
I would say the exploration science that we're doing
is inherently pretty flexible
And operations is, I'd say, inherently
has more structure and rigidity.
And so to marry the two and to operationalize the science
that we want to get done has been a challenge.
But I think we've been able to go through these processes
and create good products at the end and have a good plan.
And yeah, it's been really great.
What was the second part of your question?
Just what kind of these science activities
that they're performing, which of those
have you really had a hand in?
Yeah, so a lot of the procedures help organize
what the crew is doing in the cabin.
And I know we've talked a lot about what they've been doing
and they've been doing a lot and it's been a little dark,
so I can re-explain what some of those things
that they're doing.
So the observation blocks are about an hour long
and the crew is organized, the four crew members
are organized into two pairs of two,
the window team and the cabin team
and the lunar targeting package that you've been
showing up and what the crew have on their handheld tablets
is really the instructions for the window team.
So the window team, the two crew members
are looking at the window.
One has the camera with the long lens.
One has, they're just looking at the window
with their unaided eye, and they're
taking these detailed observations.
And then halfway in that observation block,
they do the window team position swap.
So that's what CAPCOM has been calling out
in those switch positions.
So each crew member has a chance
to have that long lens and then that's just what the window team is doing.
There's also the cabin team where they also have duties that they're doing.
We're asking a lot of the crew in this time.
And then the cabin team, they're taking, they have the interior camera
and they're taking images inside the cabin.
They're also supporting the window team where, you know, you've heard some callouts
where looking out at the bright moon and then looking inside the dark cabin
and looking at their LED screen is a lot.
So the cabin team is also helping support a target
and guide the window team into specific targets
on their plan.
They're also helping call out these science situational reps.
So they're looking out a different window
and listening in to what the crew who are really down
and in on the science on the window team are doing.
And they're giving us insight.
And those recordings that the window team is doing
are going to be uplinked or downlinked overnight.
and we're going to be able to chew on that data.
But yeah, they're helping.
They're doing a lot.
And so making sure we have a plan that's flexible
but also make sure that we check off all those boxes
was really important.
So tell me a little bit more.
You talked earlier about the analogs
that the crew has done.
What kind of analogs are environments
we're really useful for this?
Yeah, so for procedure development,
you have so many different environments that you can do.
You have classroom, like we said,
We have, you have the Orion mock-up, you have simulations,
and for at least for developing the plan,
we kind of did it in a tiered approach
because each of those different analog environments
helps us answer a slightly different question
and has a little bit of a higher fidelity.
So we would start with the classroom.
So we would get, we would just get into a classroom,
we would put all the hardware on the table
and then we'd almost role play of like Ubi Victor,
Ubi Reed, Ubi Jerry and Ubi Christina
And like let's just do the plan, how we think we should do it.
Write that down and then just keep iterating on that.
And then.
And David Houston for a tag up pre forward link LOS in place
of the flight director conference.
Okay, Jenny, we're ready.
All right, crew, I'm going to roll through a couple of topics here.
The first two are for timeline.
First of all, read for your toilet maintenance.
It is a shortened toilet maintenance where you do not have
to do the oxone changeout.
That portion of the procedure is canceled.
Victor, you have an HHP stop activity on your timeline.
We need you to perform that as scheduled for bandwidth reason.
For your next portion of the flyby, in particular the eclipse,
we want to remind you that you can take off the eclipse glasses
when the sun sets and you are simply looking at the corona.
And then finally, for the D5 with the long or zoom lens,
which is set for solar corona, we want to remind you that when you are
capturing earth shine, you will likely have to adjust the exposure. That's all I
have for you. Let me know if you have anything for us.
Okay, you can copy all. Thanks for those words, Tiffany.
All right, just a quick call up to the crew ahead of a forward link,
LOS, meaning that we won't be communicating with them,
but we will be receiving their communications
and data during that timeframe.
So, Angela, we were talking about analog environments.
You were telling me about the classroom and getting
in there and pretending, who's Victor, who's Reid?
Tell me more about this.
Yeah, it works pretty well.
So you're going to do the plan, how you expect it to be.
And then once we finalize that plan,
we'll give it to a completely new group of people
and have them practice it.
And then they'll be like, these steps don't make sense.
And we'll reiterate on it over and over.
Then we'll take it to a higher fidelity environment
like the Orion mockup.
And we'll do the same thing, because that volume is smaller.
The window placement, their seating,
what things have we forgotten with this addition
of this environment.
And then once we reiterate on that, we'll take it then,
we'll give it to the crew and have them execute off of it
during mission simulations.
That's the highest fidelity that we can do before we send it
to space.
So this is the first time we've had
to do this because we're a brand new console.
And it just sparks so many neurons
of like how are we going to do this for service missions
and integrate this in so many different ways.
So excited to have kicked off this process,
but there's so much more to come.
Fascinating.
And I think it was really well thought out, too,
Each crew member gets an opportunity to do each task.
And so you're getting different perspectives
and different insights from each crew member,
maybe even about the same target,
but something that one person sees
could be completely different
than something another person notices.
So we also know that Artemis II has traveled,
they're now on their way home,
but they traveled farther from the moon
than the Apollo missions did.
So what makes that vantage point
scientifically interesting?
Yeah.
Observations are so fundamental in the scientific toolkit,
particularly observations from different perspectives,
different scales, and with different techniques.
And so we really tried to make the plan
to optimize those.
There's pros and cons for all those things for this mission.
So we really just focus the plan to have all those pros.
So in terms of scale, this zoomed out scale,
you can learn different things.
This zoomed out are this different perspective.
So their perspective, as Kelsey talked about,
photometry around when they orbit the moon,
and then also just their different,
the different things they're able to observe.
So yeah, let me talk a little bit about scale
because I think observations at different scales,
you can gain a lot of different information.
So like, for example, if you were an astronaut
on the surface looking at a rock,
and you describe at this micro scale.
So in training, we kind of talk about observations
from micro to macro, or from outcrop to orbit.
So looking at a rock at this scale,
you can describe its components,
you can describe what it's made of
and its colors and its minerals.
And you're like, okay, and this rock came from this boulder.
And it's this part of this boulder.
And these are the different things
that I'm observing around.
It gives me context to the sample.
And then you zoom out a little bit more
and you're like, okay, well, I can see
that this boulder came from,
it rolled from this mountain ridge
or this high-rich feature.
And then, because I can see the trail that it came from,
okay, now let me describe this ridge
and different parts of it, and maybe other boulders
that I'm seeing, and then you zoom out further
of the orbit scale.
And like, this ridge is a part of this larger crater.
So all of those different steps
give you different information.
And so that's why observations at these different scales
and these different perspectives are so important.
So this zoomed out kind of far view
is this full lunar disc view.
It's the full lunar, you know, on Earth
we see the full lunar disc as well,
but now we're able to see it on the far side
and we're able to see it, you know, all at the same time,
which enables the astronauts to compare very quickly
to different parts of the surface.
And the color particularly is very compelling
because you can just be able to very quickly compare
from, you know, three different regions.
Is it in the same family?
Is this actually a little bit different?
Compare that to what they see in their orbital data
that they have access to on their portable computers
and really just be able to tease out
that nuance and information.
Yeah, we heard them make a lot of those connections today
and especially the color.
We talked with Kelsey about this a little bit,
just how exciting it was to hear the browns and greens
and things like that.
I cannot wait to see those pictures.
So one last question.
We are coming up on the last lunar flyby observation block
And this is when we are going into a solar eclipse.
So can you tell me what you're interested in the crew learning
during that timeframe?
Yeah.
So the data set, yes, there's so many things.
How to pick one.
So I'd say the thing that I'm most interested in seeing
is some of their annotations that they're taking.
So in this opportunity, it's a very dynamic type
of experience in that we don't normally see this activity.
And so being able to have crew observe the solar corona and then also annotate it on their
portable computing device is just such a unique thing that humans can give to missions.
And also, particularly being able to annotate what they're observing while they're talking
about it is also unique to being able to have astronauts in orbit as well.
because we won't be able to have annotations
on the lunar surface because the astronauts will be in suits.
They're going to be collecting samples.
They're going to be deploying instruments.
And so personally, I'm really excited
to see some of these annotations
and to see how that develops over time.
Because you've heard a lot of descriptions.
And I think when people are describing something
that's unique and different, you can interpret it
differently.
But if you're drawing and you're
marking, particularly just going back
to like the color provinces, for example,
and those boundaries, you know exactly what they meant.
And really, I just, I'm just very excited
about those annotations.
There's been some famous annotations
that the Apollo crew have made,
particularly about solar coronas and the structures
that have, and lofted dust,
that have given a lot of debate
within the scientific community
of they're observing this phenomenon.
And now it's our job to hypothesize
of like, why are they observing this?
like what is going on.
So I think that's just a really cool part of exploration
and science and this beautiful thing that we're about to do.
Well, now you've got me excited about the annotations too.
I mean, I've been excited about the pictures and the audio,
but now don't sleep on the annotations.
I am very excited to see these little sketches
that they're able to draw out.
And we have pictures that they can just draw right on.
It's like, this particular thing is different
than what we've seen, so I'm excited about that.
I'm excited too.
Angela Garcia, thank you so much for joining us today.
And have a great time tonight on console.
Thank you.
And you've been doing a great job.
And it's so excited to see where we go from here.
Thank you so much.
Integrity Houston, you have three minutes until we go into a forward link, LOS, we'll
be back up with you in about an hour.
Jerry may eclipse on Madrid.
Thanks for the heads up, I look forward to seeing you on the other side.
Likewise.
We're live in Artemis Mission Control at Johnson Space Center
in Houston, Texas.
This is a live view from the Orion spacecraft
with our Artemis II crew inside.
That's Reed Wiseman, Victor Glover, Christina Cook,
and Jeremy Hansen.
We are still live for our lunar flyby coverage.
The crew is in a short break while the spacecraft is pivoted away
from the moon.
We are going to be going into a solar eclipse.
This is the first time anyone has ever
seen, a solar eclipse from the moon. So it's going to be a unique vantage point for our crew.
But ahead of heading into that solar eclipse, we need to charge the batteries on the Orion
spacecraft. Therefore, we have positioned the solar arrays into the sunlight to allow time
for those batteries to charge. We will get back pointed at the moon just in time for that solar
eclipse. We are also in a forward link, LOS. What that means is essentially we cannot send calls
or commands to the crew right now from the ground. However, we clearly get all of their data
and communications. The spacecraft is now 4,632 miles away from the moon and that number will
only continued to grow, as the distance from Earth shrinks, now 252,523 miles away.
Our closest approach to the Moon today was approximately 4,067 statute miles in altitude.
Our maximum distance from the Earth is suspected to be 252,756 statute miles.
Both of those moments came while Orion was flying in their loss of signal timeframe
behind the moon. The crew also set that new record today, beating the Apollo 13 record
of distance from Earth. This is an animation or a visualization that you can track any
time, day or night by visiting nasa.gov slash track Artemis. This shows you how the spacecraft
is positioned as well as their distance and velocity. Now traveling 930 miles per
hour.
During this break in their time today, the crew is working on a couple of other tasks.
Some of those include their National Geographic Timeline Test.
National Geographic was selected through a competitive process by NASA to help tell
the story of Artemis II.
So you've seen the crew with some go-pros inside the cabin, taking videos and pictures
and with other cameras as well.
National Geographic plans to leverage its portfolio of media assets, including magazines,
social and digital content, and television programming for engagement opportunities.
the flight crew has been time-lined a little bit each day to film from a shot
a shot list provided by a National Geographic and that includes their
morning routine talking with their families exercising and just their
overall thoughts about the mission and I cannot wait to see that footage.
It seems on the ground reporting that the spacecraft is looking good
and that the power aboard is good as well,
all setting us up in a proper position before eclipse.
the crew is in a little break during our
fly-by coverage for today. They will resume their fly-by momentarily in about 30 minutes
once they get into their observations during that solar eclipse. Now the moon is our nearest
celestial neighbor orbiting Earth at less than a quarter of a million miles on average.
When our astronauts venture there for future Artemis missions, they'll target landing sites
near the lunar south pole. Their ancient rocks, minerals, and trapped water ice
will not only provide resources for human explorers, but they may also contain clues to the formation
and evolution of our planet and the solar system. Let's learn more about the lunar
south pole with this video featuring Dr. Kelsey Young, Artemis Science Flight Operations Lead.
We learned a lot from the Apollo samples, but we still have a lot left to learn about the moon.
The Apollo missions visited only a pretty narrow swath of the moon. All the missions were
were concentrated near the near side equator.
Really interesting and really critical insights
were unlocked with the Apollo samples,
but we have so many questions still to answer
about the moon and the evolution of the moon.
And liftoff of Artemis I, we rise together
back to the moon and beyond.
NASA's Artemis missions are NASA's plan
to send people to the surface of the moon.
We'll be sending people and roving assets
and scientific equipment to, among other things,
answer a lot of really compelling science questions.
Scientists have a lot to learn about the moon.
It's our nearest social neighbor here to Earth,
so what the moon has experienced, we've experienced.
Except here on Earth, we have things like plate tectonics,
oceans, forests, people that erase the rock record.
Whereas on the moon, that whole record
of our planet's history of the moon's history
is just kind of waiting there
at the surface for us to explore.
The South Pole, which is where Artemis missions
going to target is specifically interesting for a couple key reasons.
We think there are volatiles at the south pole of the moon that are not present near the equator.
Things like water and water ice that are trapped in the lunar regolith, which basically just
means lunar soil, that can easily become untrapped from that lunar regolith and scientists
can scoop up and study for a return to Earth.
The lunar south pole is a really exciting scientific target, and it also comes with
some challenges for operating.
For example, the lighting environment will change drastically within the course of one
mission and even over sometimes the course of one spacewalk.
So preparing the crew members, preparing the hardware that we're sending to the moon
and preparing the mission control teams is really, really important.
The South Pole Aiken Basin is particularly exciting.
We think it's one of the oldest and largest impact basins in the solar system.
And if we can get the right rock from the South Pole Aiken Basin and bring it
back to our labs here on Earth, we can use that sample to constrain the entire
evolution of our solar system and really understand the timing of how the moon and our planet and the entire solar system evolved.
You're looking at a live view aboard the Orion spacecraft of the Artemis II crew working in the middle of one of their breaks.
or really their only break today during this lunar flyby period.
Coming up next will be that solar eclipse.
Throughout the Artemis II mission, and of course throughout today,
you've likely heard the crew being called with the name Integrity.
The Artemis II crew members named their Orion spacecraft Integrity during a news conference,
September 24th, 2025.
The name integrity embodies the foundation of trust, respect, candor, and humility across
the crew and the many engineers, technicians, scientists, planners, and dreamers required
for mission success.
They said this name is also a nod to the extensive integrated effort from the more
than 300,000 spacecraft components to the thousands of people across the world that
must come together to venture to the moon and back, inspire the world, and set the
course for a long-term presence at the moon.
The crew also said the integrity is rooted in a shared core value
of NASA, the agency's astronaut office, and the CSA,
the Canadian Space Agency.
We are five days, one hour,
in 38 minutes, mission elapsed time into Artemis II.
In this view on the screen, you can see the crew starting
to even look through some photos
that they may have captured today.
We really look forward to sharing these photos with you
as soon as we possibly can.
And the best way to keep up with those is
to follow NASA on social media.
You can do so at NASA and for this mission specifically
at NASA Artemis.
Again, we are in a forward link.
LOS or Forward Link loss of signal with the crew,
meaning that we're not able to communicate
or send any commands to them right now.
As they were, this is a tracked event that occurs
at times that they could still provide communications
down here to us.
And we are obviously still receiving their video
and their data.
You're going to take ready in the blind, high priority PAO activities on REEDS timeline
are on PCD1 and a folder imagery for downlink and then high priority step by imagery for
downlink and then lunar flyby for PAO and then high priority PAO, thank you.
This is Artemis Mission Control.
You heard Reed Wiseman, commander of the Artemis II mission aboard Orion, make a call
in the blind.
This means he knows we cannot call back and that he knows we may not receive his call.
However, we have good communications with the spacecraft.
They just cannot hear from us right now due to a forward link loss of signal.
Again, we were tracking that this would occur and we will regain that momentarily.
If that call that came down from Wiseman mentioned some imagery, so we are very much
looking forward to getting pictures taken from the moon today.
Again, to see those images, make sure you follow NASA on our social media at NASA and at NASA Artemis.
The view on your screen right now is an animation.
This is called Arrow or Artemis Real-Time Orbit website.
You can visit this for yourself at nasa.gov slash track Artemis and you can watch
as we continue to grow closer to Earth and farther away from the Moon.
It's all seemed to happen so fast so far and we're coming on the splash
down now in three days, 23 minutes and 30, 23 hours and 31 minutes.
This is Artemis Mission Control.
We are in a forward link LOS with the spacecraft.
If we're not able to send commands or communications to them right now, however,
they could send them to us, and we do get spacecraft data.
This is tracked as we are on the deep space network.
This is the network that we use to communicate with the spacecraft,
now that we are so far from our over 252,000 miles.
We are still in our lunar flyby coverage.
The crew still have a very important and very exciting flyby milestone coming
up when they will see a solar eclipse from the moon, the first humans to ever do so.
Something that we also have to consider when it comes to our missions
and launches are space weather.
So since the Apollo 16 and 17 missions, there were some solar eruptions near that timeframe
that could have been dangerous to our explorers.
Over those 50 years since those storms, the data, technology, and resources available to NASA have improved,
enabling advancements towards space weather forecasts and astronaut protection,
which is key to NASA's Artemis program to return astronauts to the Moon.
Across our planet, billions of people depend on the invisible networks that connect us
to space.
Every day, those networks are at the mercy of our temperamental sun, and the space weather
that it unleashes across our solar system.
That's why NASA's Space Weather Program tracks solar storms from the moment they erupt, modeling
their paths, anticipating their impacts, and leading the research that the world's industries
rely on.
NASA's Space Weather Research and Modeling is driven by the needs of society and enables
critical decision-making that equips pilots to reroute around high-radiation areas,
to adjust GPS-based precision planting and harvesting plans,
and power grid operators to mitigate the impacts of potential surges.
For those exploring other worlds, NASA provides 24-7 space-weather monitoring
for Artemis crews at the Moon and future Mars astronauts
who may be exposed to dangerous levels of radiation during solar storms.
Whether you're a pilot or a passenger,
A farmer or a consumer, a power grid operator or energy customer, a satellite controller
or GPS user, spaceflight impacts us all.
This is a live view from the Orion spacecraft on the Artemis II mission.
It's now been five days, one hour and 54 minutes since we launched.
We are still in our flyby coverage and the crew is on a short break right now as we have
changed the attitude of the spacecraft to help charge the batteries aboard.
We use the solar arrays to gather energy from the sun and store it in the batteries.
That way when we are not in the sunlight, we have those batteries to continue powering
Orion.
Now, we're doing so because the Artemis astronauts are about to experience a solar eclipse from
their capsule.
And this is a solar eclipse that no one else on Earth will experience.
This eclipse is about 54 minutes, and to the astronauts it will look a lot like a total
solar eclipse on Earth, except the Moon is going to be huge compared to the Sun.
Unlike when you watch one on Earth and the Moon and the Sun appear about the same
size in the sky.
We're interested to learn if they see the outer corona when the sun is fully obscured
by the moon.
And because of how big the moon will be from their perspective, the total phase of the eclipse
will last nearly an hour.
The astronauts will see a partial solar eclipse as the moon covers and uncovers the sun,
which is before and after totality.
So much like us on Earth, they will have eclipse glasses so they can safely view that portion.
The astronauts will also be using cameras to capture images of the corona during the eclipse.
There also may be some other planets visible during the eclipse, including Venus, Saturn,
Mars, and Mercury.
If they can identify what part of the sky they're looking at, this can help train
future Artemis astronauts on what part of the sky they're seeing.
This provides useful knowledge in challenging situations when they may need to rely on that
information instead of instruments for navigation and orientation.
Confirmation from teams here in the ground that we have reached the eclipse attitude,
meaning Orion is in the proper position to observe it.
The astronauts break during this observation period is now over and we are resuming their
lunar flyby observations. The first of these is sunset. This is the solar corona that we'll
be looking for. It's the outer atmosphere of the sun. The science team is also interested
and if the astronauts can see polar plumes.
These are thin streamers that project
from the sun's north and south poles.
Additionally, they're interested in seeing
if the crew can witness coronal loops.
These are arcs close to the sun's surface.
And something else that we've previously mentioned is lunar dust.
This is dust from the moon that is lofted
above the lunar surface and illuminated by the sun.
It was reported visible by Apollo astronauts.
You're getting a live look from Orion as the crew observes a solar eclipse from the moon.
Again, this solar eclipse is only visible to the crew on the spacecraft.
It's not visible to anybody on Earth.
The science team is interested in several different targets for them during this timeframe.
And we're personally looking forward to getting those images as well.
Again, during the beginning portion of this eclipse, the astronauts will need to use eclipse
glasses just like we do from Earth to safely view it.
Once the moon has completely covered the sun, they'll be able to take off those glasses
for almost an hour.
Totality on Earth during a solar eclipse lasts only a couple of minutes.
So this opportunity gives them a chance to look out into deep space and to look
into see if there are other planets nearby.
What you're seeing right now is the solar corona.
That's the outer atmosphere of the sun.
And the science team is very interested in any images
that the crew can capture of this.
They're hoping that they'll take pictures
and describe the visibility, color,
and shape of the solar corona as a whole
and its substructures, those plumes and streamers.
Science integrity in the blind.
This is a failure to be revealed.
The sun has gone behind the moon and the corona is still visible and it's bright
and it creates an halo almost around the entire moon.
But when you get to the Earth side, the Earth's shine is already showing.
I mean almost seconds after the sun set behind the moon, you could see Earth's shine.
The Earth is so bright out there and the moon is just hanging in front of us, this black orb out in front of us,
in front of now, not the blackness but the gray that blends and drips into the blackness.
we can see stars and the planets behind it.
And Christina is in window one,
she's in window two with the long lens.
And Jeremy is describing it in window three.
And it is quite an impressive sight.
You can still see the horizon with a brighter,
where the sun set on that side of the moon is bright.
And the earth shine is very distinct and it creates quite an impressive visual illusion.
Wow, it's amazing.
Again, you're looking at a live view from the
Orion spacecraft on the Artemis II mission. Orion is now 252,125 miles away from us all on Earth.
We're here in the Artemis Mission Control Room in Houston, Texas, and what you had just before
we lost that view quickly was the corona of the sun peeking around the moon as the astronauts
are entering a solar eclipse for this portion of the lunar flyby.
We're now over 5,500 statute miles from the moon.
That closest approach today was just about 4,067 statute miles away.
The team's in the room beginning to get a little busier and filter in and out as we are stepping
through a handover.
The Orbit 1 team is handing over to Orbit 2 who will continue monitoring lunar flyby
and all of the systems aboard the Orion spacecraft.
You're getting your last few views of the solar corona as the moon begins to take center stage
and completely cover the sun.
If you see that bright dot up near the top left of your screen, we think right now that
that may be a part of the spacecraft that we'll be sure to correct that if we end
up figuring out later that it is something else entirely.
It has been an absolute honor to join you here today for the Lunar Flyby of Artemis II, the
first time humans have flown by the moon in over 50 years.
I'm Leah Cheshire-Mistachio and I'm excited now to hand over the...
My name is shifting around in the windows and we are transferring the settings on the
camera to pick up Earth's shine and it is amazing.
The brightness with the corona, with the sunset is still bright, there's, I think
there may still be corona visual visible,
but that part of the horizon is still a bit brighter
and you still have a distinct or shot.
You know our rules that we don't talk when the crew is talking so I wanted to give Victor
Glover a moment there to call down what he was seeing now that the moon is covering the
sun.
A really amazing time during today's lunar flyby.
Again, thank you so much for letting us help tell this story today.
I am Leah Cheshire-Mastasio handing it over to my friend Anna Schneider at the PAO
console as the Orbit 2 team comes to join us.
So thank you so much and I hope you all enjoy tonight.
Anna, you can take it away.
Thank you so much, Leigh Ann.
It's been a joy listening to your coverage
over the last several hours.
So as you mentioned, the Orbit 2 team
of flight controllers is currently making their way
on console and completing a shift handover
with the Orbit 1 team of flight controllers.
The Orbit 2 team tonight will be led
by flight director Diane Daly.
And she is currently handing over
with the Orbit 1 flight director there on your screen
who was flight director Jeff Radigan.
The Artemis II crew currently onboard the Orion spacecraft.
It continues to observe the eclipse that they are witnessing.
There's about 43 minutes remaining in that eclipse period.
This is Artemis Mission Control.
You are currently seeing a live view of the solar ray wing cameras
on the Orion spacecraft.
We spoke with our science team and they did determine
that that dot in the distance is Venus.
The science integrity, let's see, not a huge change in here, just to update the camera settings
for Earth Shine are challenging.
It is challenging to capture what we're seeing, we're just not picking up on the cameras.
after all of the amazing sites that we saw earlier.
This is, we just went side by side.
This has, it just looks unreal.
You can see the surface of the moon between, I guess,
the Earth Shine, I guess Earth Shine,
you can actually see a majority of the moon.
It is the strangest looking thing.
that you can see so much on the surface.
This is Artemis Mission Control.
You were just hearing some communications called down
from NASA astronaut Victor Cleaver.
currently onboard the Orion spacecraft.
They are currently observing an eclipse.
There's about 39 minutes remaining in that eclipse period.
Currently we are in a forward link LOS or loss of signal
so the crew can communicate down with the...
He's seen two meteor sites.
We are in a four link loss of signal.
We do expect to regain signal in about three minutes.
And at that point, then the ground
can communicate back up to the crew
on board the Orion spacecraft.
In the meantime, the crew can continue
to communicate down to the ground.
The ground is just unable to respond.
So they are continuing to provide
some science observations during this eclipse period.
They've made some comments about earth shine,
which is the sunlight reflected from earth
when they come around towards the moons near side,
late in this flyby window.
Science integrity and the blind glow around the moon is beginning to become a little bit
more even.
It's not so much distinct just where the sun's set on the moon's horizon as we're flying
through the trajectory and then the sun's going to come up out of the other side.
I think it's, we're starting to see the glow around the moon
to get balanced out.
I still see earth shine and the earth is very bright out there.
So quite an unreal sight.
Integrity Houston, we have that SIT rep loud and clear
and we are back with you.
How do you hear me?
Okay, Jenny, we have you on.
Thanks.
Copy. Victor, we're handing over to Science for some critical questions.
Thanks for your report.
Integrity Science.
We were loving your Science at Rept. in the Blind, and it
should come as no surprise that we have a number of follow-up questions.
First, you mentioned read-observing meteors.
Can you speak to that?
Were you referring to comets or impact flashes or something else?
Yeah, there was a little bit of getting to this.
We have seen three impact flashes so far.
I saw two, and Jeremy has seen one.
Undoubtedly, well, Jeremy's called two, so that's four total.
Undoubtedly, click impact flashes.
So it was not suddenly lit off a particular from the thrusters or the purge tanks.
It was definitely a pack flash on the moon.
And Jeremy just saw another one.
Go ahead with your next question.
Amazing news.
I literally just looked over at the sur and they were jumping up and down literally.
If you could describe where on the moon you saw them please.
So they've all been either on or in itself at the equator and on the Earth side of the
moon.
Stand by.
All right, so Jeremy has seen them kind of on and south of the equator kind of spread
across the moon and mine were both south of the equator and just a little bit left of center of the moon.
Incredible news, Reed. And reminder, we have citizen scientists here on Earth looking for impact flashes.
So hearing you saw them on the near side means that people saw them too.
This is Artemis Mission Control, we have regained that signal so the team here in Mission Control
was able to call back up to the crew on board the Orion spacecraft as they continue their
lunar flyby. Specifically, they are now in that eclipse period. So the science team here in
Mission Control was able to ask some questions about some of the situational reports they
were providing during that loss of signal. Specifically, they were interested in some
of the meteors that they mentioned seen and those impact flashes and they did provide
confirmation that they did see at least four impact flashes during that last
event.
In Tigray I hear you loud and clear. How do you hear me?
Okay, we got you loud and clear. One of the other things I wanted to describe which was
surprising to me but the entire moon is lit up. It's blowing behind the
the entire moon. I thought it would look dark against the black sky or deep space, but
the sun is lighting up the entire limb of the moon. You can see the entire perimeter
of it and even now with the sun far behind the moon, you can see, you can see little
bits of topography around the entire limb, just bumps as you go around it. And there
about the glow around the moon, what your eyes adjust is easily 10 widths or diameters
of the sun around the entire moon.
Incredible to hear, Jeremy. Were you able to actually pick out any discrete features
on the lunar surface and if so how do they look different than when you observe them in solar illumination?
We really haven't been able to identify features on the lunar surface yet.
We just see the topography on the limb for the Earth Glow.
So, it's, we're about a quarter moon, wax and quarter moon if you will, from the Earth
globe perspective and it's just at a very, just the sight angle, I'm just not even going
to tell what I'm looking at yet in the Earth globe.
Understood.
Thanks, Jeremy.
One other question for you on the solar corona, were you actually able to see any
structure or color in the corona before most of it disappeared behind the moon?
Yeah, I didn't pick out any color, but definitely structure. I mean, there were streamers and
they were not uniform at all. For me, the 5 o'clock position, there was just this constant
It would change in intensity and diameter, but it was always there, and it was always
at the five o'clock position.
I only saw one plume, and it came out of basically the three o'clock position of the sun.
That was very short lived when I could see the plume.
Exactly what we were looking for.
Thanks, Jeremy, and a heads up that we, you know, calculated here on the ground
about how long you could see the corona for, and we expect it to start to appear again
in the next 11 minutes.
Thanks for those amazing descriptions.
Okay, we're excited to see it all again.
The integrity Houston, we're following along as well.
That was outstanding.
if you haven't already, just reminding you
to swap positions at the window.
And that brief LOS we had previously was due
to a data rate change expected.
Okay, we copy that, Jenny.
In Tegrity Science, one more request for you while it's still fresh in your mind, any
annotations or sketches you want to make of what you're seeing either around the corona
structures you just mentioned or even on Earth Shine would be so appreciated.
And if the annotations come in the next block where you're cleaning up your documentation
That sounds like a good plan to me.
This is Artemis Mission Control.
On the bottom right corner of your screen you can see a view of the science officer console here in Mission Control.
And we've been hearing that communication between the science officer, the orbit one science officer is Kelsey Young,
and she's been asking questions to the crew, specifically CSA Asherat Jeremy Hansen, based on the observations they've been making during this eclipse period.
And then in the upper left-hand corner of your screen, you can see a view of the Artemis real-time orbit website,
which provides updates on the velocity and the distance from Earth and the Moon of the Orion
spacecraft as it continues to make its way back to Earth. The distance from the Moon will continue
to increase at this point, so right now Orion and its crew are about 6,300 miles away from the Moon
and about 251,000 miles away from the Earth.
Okay, science, we're getting set up for sunrise, the window teams are, Christina is supporting
and also a Z9, a Windows 1, Jeremy's got the long lens and a Windows 2 and the short lens
and a Windows 2 and Reid is in the Windows 3 and he has started recordings and is set
up to see Corona.
Great set, Rep Victor, that sounds like a good config and we're showing Corona effects
start to appear on your video camera.
So in the next few minutes,
we should start to hear your observations.
This is Artemis Mission Control.
We just heard the crew call down to the team here in Houston reporting
that they have swapped out who is in the windows for their final portion
of the lunar flyby.
So Christina Cook is in window one with Jeremy Hansen in window two
and Reid in window three.
Reid is focusing on observing corona which is at the solar corona
which the sun's outermost atmosphere.
There is about 18 minutes remaining in the Eclipse period.
Science and peace to integrity.
I know this observation won't be of any scientific value,
but I'm really glad we launched on 8th and 1st.
Because humans probably have not evolved
to see what we're seeing.
It's truly hard to describe.
It is amazing.
Amazing. Thank you, Victor.
And just one more logistics note, we have gone as dark as we can in the cabin.
We have turned the DUs all the way as dim as they can go, so you can't see anything
on the screen.
Every bit of light in the cabin affects the view.
We are definitely seeing the brightness go closer.
It's definitely brighter on the Earth's shine side,
and so we expect them to see some corona here soon.
We copy all, excited for what you see next.
I'm not sure if we talked much about the star field, but we've got lots of stars.
You've got the nice glow around the moon, but, you know, right off the, well, we're upside down now,
but from upside down, four o'clock, right off the edge of the moon, it looks like a planet,
that line of planets. There's something on the moon down there to the left
and something right off the limb of the moon to the right, and then something orange.
It looks orange to the right of that, about half the multimeter.
So, but anyway, there are definitely stars.
I think some of those planets that she said we might see were seeing.
And so, in unreal view, yeah, the moon and the foreground is one
of the darkest things we see out the window.
And now it's deep space behind it is kind of dark blue,
like it looks up from Earth, but we can also still see stars.
It's a wicked view.
I'm just doing the best job and I'm not going to try to add on what he's doing.
It's indescribable.
No matter how long we look at this, our brains are not processing this image in front of us.
It is absolutely spectacular, surreal.
There's no adjectives.
I'm going to need to invent some new ones to describe what we are looking at out this window.
This is just absolutely beautiful and inspiring to hear and Victor, we suspect what you're
seeing is Saturn and Mars, that reddish object is likely Mars.
Good opportunity to look to the future of where we're going.
Yeah, we can absolutely see the color of Mars, that's awesome.
Okay, and from this vantage point, the four o'clock on the Earth Shine side is definitely
getting brighter, still no coronal structure.
She's ten copies.
And we aren't able to distinguish which Mars, but we can clearly see Mars in the earth's
shine.
We copy.
This is Artemis, Mission Control, in Houston, Texas.
This is Artemis, Mission Control in Houston, Texas.
We have not seen an impact flash in the last five minutes.
Sounds unlucky, but you had a pretty strong start, so we'll take it.
Actually, right after I said that right near the south pole on the terminator, we just saw one.
Amazing.
Integrity science, and as you look around our solar system neighborhood, you should
see Saturn setting behind the moon right now.
We do.
We've been watching a track close to the horizon, and it's right tangential to the
at this moment.
This is Artemis Mission Control in Houston, Texas.
We are currently five days, two hours and 44 minutes
into the Artemis II mission and we have about 11 minutes remaining in the eclipse
as the at the latter half of the lunar flyby that the Artemis II crew is experiencing
on board the Orion spacecraft.
We've received several different call downs from the crew and questions
up from the science officer here in Mission Control.
One of the things that they said that they were able to see is Mars off in the distance
and then the science team also confirmed that they should be seeing Saturn setting behind the moon.
They've also acknowledged seeing several different impact flashes,
and these are flashes of lights from meteorites striking at the surface of the moon.
They've also mentioned the solar corona, which is the sun's outermost atmosphere.
Here in Michigan Control Houston, the orbit 1 and orbit 2 teams have officially completed their handover.
So the Orbit 2 team is now leading here in Michigan Troll,
and that is being led by Flight Director Diane Daly,
and the CAPCOM here in Michigan Troll will be Tess Caswell.
And you can see there on your screen
on the right-hand side is the Flight Director Consul,
and Diane Daly is in the far right of that screen,
and Tess Caswell, the CAPCOM or Capsule Communicator,
is in the far left hand of that screen.
Okay, the light is continuing to grow in intensity, about the four o'clock position on the Earth
That's showing slide.
Standard has set.
Mars is tracking towards the moon.
Sir.
Integrity science.
We copy and we're starting to see it on the vehicle stream.
Looking for attendee coronal observations
you can share with us.
This is Artemis, Mission Control.
That view you're seeing on your screen is coming
from the solar array wing cameras outside
of the Orion spacecraft.
And you can see the light starting to come into view
as the solar eclipse period is starting to end.
I think we still know the wrong structure at this time.
Just continue to grow in intensity.
Copy, Victor.
And reminder, you should, you still should have several minutes
before the eclipse classes need to go on.
I mean, we can send you up a reminder when you're getting close
to take your eyes away from the D5 viewfinder,
but you should be good for several more minutes.
Copy. Thank you. And yes, please sit at the reminder. Thank you.
Okay. We all think we're starting to see something. I believe the most popular term
is baby hair. The light, it grows in intensity in the horizon on this side that comes very
distinct. You can still see earth shine even though the sun's brightness is definitely
growing in intensity.
Well, the description, Victor, I'm sure as the next couple minutes progress, more of
those structures will continue to pop out.
This is Artemis, Michigan, Troll in Houston, Texas.
The Artemis II astronauts onboard the Orion spacecraft are currently serving an eclipse.
And to the crew onboard the spacecraft, the eclipse looks much like a total solar eclipse
here on Earth, except the moon is much larger compared to the sun, unlike a terrestrial
solar eclipse where the moon and the sun appear the same size in the sky.
We are definitely starting to see structure. That baby hair is rapidly growing out toward
the 9 o'clock and the 8 o'clock. It's almost as if they were reaching out for Venus or
If you've ever seen the spotlight off the top of the Luxor at night in Las Vegas, this
It looks like what that wants to be when it grows up.
Integrity science.
Glad to hear you're following your training of.
Tell it like you see it.
So far it's pretty symmetrical.
There are two or three streamers that are growing in intensity and in the magnitude and I slowly
started to widen and started to spread out across the horizon.
Pretty amazing view.
And integrity Houston, great words.
Reminder for you, we are approaching the brightness level
at which you should no longer be using the viewfinder
on the D5.
Integrity copies, and thanks for the heads up.
This is Artemis Mission Control.
I think we're seeing some directionality.
Some of it is going in different directions because it appears to be moving and recombining
and recombining as it points in different directions.
Some of it appears to be going down toward the south pole of the moon, and then coming
back together and going out towards Venus and the Earth.
And depending on how I stare at it, it looks like one large structure,
but then it definitely has a width.
And then you can see three or four structures inside of it.
It's like watching a flame.
It's like looking at a flame and stand by.
And so it has some inherent movement.
Now there's a very bright spot.
There's a very bright spot in the center of it.
There's a towering light and then there were like two streamers that were going 30 degrees
out from it and now it is just extremely bright.
Here's the copydoll.
And we copied all.
We wanted to remind you at this point, on the eclipse glasses, should be about time
for those.
Thank you for the report. We sure wish we were there with you.
This is Artemis, Mission Control.
The eclipse period is coming to an end and we did hear that call-up that the crew now
has to put on those eclipse glasses to be able to protect their eyes for this final
portion of the eclipse.
And these views coming to you from the solar array wing cameras on the Orion spacecraft.
And if you could give me about 20 new superlatives
in the mission summary for tomorrow,
I'll buy the vocabulary out of it.
Thank you.
We will solicit input from the team.
This is Artemis Mission Control.
There on your screen you can see a live look inside of the SIR
or the science evaluation room here in Mission Control Houston,
just down the hallway from the Artemis Flight Control room.
Integrity Houston, back with you after a data rate change.
Regarding the SA-3 camera T low caution, no action for you.
It just got a little cool during the eclipse.
Okay, we copied it, and if you didn't copy my request for the mission summary tab,
about 20 new superlatives to help my vocabulary, I would appreciate it.
We copied it fantastically.
And integrity science, this is basically wrapping up your fly-by-day observations.
I can't say enough how much science we've already learned and how much inspiration you've
provided to our entire team, the lunar science community, and the entire world with what
you were able to bring today.
You really brought the moon closer for us today and we cannot say thank you enough.
And science sign enough and can't wait to talk to you tomorrow morning.
to the entire NASA science team, you all really turned to when we shifted to launch date to
April 1st and you got the most incredible package together for us to go do some great science
and some great truly human experience moments here and we were well prepared and we appreciate
all of you and this is what we do best when we all come together and work as a team
Y'all knocked it out of the park.
Thank you for giving us this opportunity.
Beautiful words Reed.
Thanks so much.
And this is Artemis Mission Control.
The Lunar Flyby Observation Period is starting to come
to a close following that eclipse.
And there on your screen you can see a look
into the science evaluation room or the SER,
which is embedded within Mission Control to provide science input.
And they provided that input throughout the flyby operations today.
They also have a back room called the science mission operations room
that processes data, evaluates imagery, and supports rapid analysis.
And then of course, we have the science officer on console here
in the Artemis flight control room, which you can see a view there
on the bottom right-hand corner of your screen.
The science officer throughout the flyby operations today has been Kelsey Young,
who is the Artemis Science Flight Operations Lead.
And then to her left is Angela Garcia, who will be the science officer taking over for orbit 2.
And for the past seven hours or so, the crew has been going
through their lunar flyby observation period.
And now they will wrap up that period and complete some final tasks
and begin downlinking some of the amazing imagery
that they've captured throughout the day as well as some
of the observations that they've recorded.
And now on your screen,
you're seeing a live look from the Orion spacecraft
from those solar array wing cameras.
The solar eclipse period ended just a few minutes ago
and during this eclipse towards the end
of the flyby window, it lasted about an hour
and it was when the sun was hidden from view behind the
opposite side of the moon from the perspective
of the Orion spacecraft and its crew.
And during that time, the crew saw a mostly dark moon
and they used the opportunity to analyze the solar corona
which is the sun's outermost atmosphere while it was visible.
And then once the sun was completely out of view behind the moon,
the crew looks for impact flashes,
which they reported seeing multiple impact flashes.
And those are flashes of light
from meteoroids striking the surface of the moon.
They also looked for dust lofting above the limb or the edge
of the moon along with some deep space targets,
including planets.
And they noticed Mars off to the distance.
And we also saw Venus on one
of the solar ray wing cameras early on in the eclipse period.
The crew also looked at parts of the moon,
illuminated by earth shine, which is the sunlight reflected
from the earth when they come
around toward the moon's near side at the very end
of that fly-by window.
Integrity Houston, understand that you are still reflecting upon and consolidating your
lunar observations.
your convenience, I have two items related to the upcoming VIP event.
Go ahead.
All right.
First, we wanted to let you know that the message
for that upcoming event is on board for review at your convenience.
That's message 3.06.04.
The second item is that we've seen a couple of video clips in previous events.
So during the HDPAO setup activity, we're wondering if Jeremy could please confirm
for us that the TS rate is set to 1300 when you get to step 10.
Okay, Jenny. Yeah, we're pretty sure we've been in 1300 for all the PAO events. We've
been tracking that when we swap between the HHP and the D5.
We copied, Jeremy. Thanks. And for the record, the phenomenal Jenny has gone on to her
next appointment of the day and you've now got tests with you.
Hi, I'm sorry, tests, great to have you on board, integrity.
No worries, happy to be here.
This is Artemis, Mr. Control, we heard some communication there
between the CAPCOM or Capsule Communicator here
in Mission Control, which for Urban II is Tess Caswell,
and the CSA or Canadian Space Agency,
Astra on board the Orion spacecraft, Jeremy Hansen.
They were discussing an upcoming public affairs event.
And integrity, three-minute warning
for the maneuver back to Biastale to Sun.
The crew on board the Orion spacecraft recently completed their lunar observation period.
It was an approximately seven-hour period of time
in which they were focused on several different targets identified
by the science team here on the ground that they studied
and prepared for ahead of time.
And then they also were referencing a lunar targeting package
that was uplinked about a day ago with those final targets.
Now they are completing some post-lunar flyby activities.
So they're working to clean up their observations that they've made
and also working to downlink some of the photos
that they've taken throughout the day.
The science team here on the ground will then work to get
as much data as they can overnight.
And then there will be a post fly by conference tomorrow
after the crew wakes up.
And that's not a debrief, but a science data collection
to capture their nuanced experience while they're still
in the field and the experience is still fresh.
And then of course there will also be a public affairs
downlink event later in the day.
Now that the post, once the post later fly
by activities are complete and then after that the crew will go
into some of their final activities for the day.
They will have a private medical conference or PMC
with the medical teams here on the ground.
These are regular sciences or regular conferences that they have
at the end of every day and then there's also a flight director
conference that they will have before they go
into their pre-sleep period during
which they can complete hygiene activities
and they will have the chance to eat their dinner
and complete any other final personal activities for the day
before they head into their sleep period.
We're curious if you're ready for us to start the stream a bit early and to test the standpoints.
Checking.
And integrity a firm we are go to start the stream
Okay, he's in the stream has started we checked the TS rates 1300 and audio is true
So I will give you a voice check now on the mic
We copy good settings and we've got a good view.
I sent an audio check down on the handheld mic.
Did you get it?
Sorry for the delay, Jeremy.
We were talking that a bit, but it was a bit broken.
So please repeat for us.
Thank you.
integrity, Houston, we like the scene at your convenience. We'll take a 10 count with Jeremy in frame.
Okay, copy that. Give us two minutes or one minute and we'll do that.
Copy.
Great voice check, and good words, we like the theme.
And integrity Houston, we are seeing a black cable going right through the middle of the
seen at your convenience. If you would please move that, P.A. would appreciate it.
This is Artemis Mission Control.
We're currently five days, three hours and 21 minutes
into the Artemis II mission following a lift off
from NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Florida
on Wednesday, April 1.
The crew onboard the Orion spacecraft is currently wrapping
up their lunar flyby cleanup activities.
They're making final.
Next slide, integrity, high priority PAO images
from the Eclipse on PCT-1 in a so named folder.
We copy, Christina.
Thanks.
And as I asked you about Christina Cook, they're calling
down to the ground regarding some public affairs imagery
that was captured during the lunar flyby activities.
To reference to PCD, that is in reference
to their portable computing devices,
which are basically tablets that they're able
to transfer files and also follow along on processes
and procedures and their timelines for the day.
This is Artemis, Mission Control in Houston, Texas.
Currently on console here in Mission Control is the orbit two team
of flight controllers being led by Flight Director Diane Daly
and the CAPCOM or Capsule Communicator who serves
as the single voice link up to the crew is Tess Caswell.
The crew onboard the Orion spacecraft recently wrapped
at their Lunar Flyby Observation Period.
And now they are completing some cleanup activities
and transferring some data and files down to the ground,
following that Lunar Flyby.
Many of these files will be analyzed
by the science team overnight in advance
of a post-Lunar Flyby Conference tomorrow
once the crew wakes up.
The crew is also preparing
for an upcoming Public Affairs Downlink event.
And then following that downlink,
They will have a few final activities for the day including a private medical conference
with their team here on the ground.
These are standard conferences that happen at the end of every day and they'll also have a private
conference with the flight director here in Mission Control to go over the vehicle status
and any other questions or concerns they may have for the remainder of their flight.
We are currently in Flight Day 6 and we have a splashdown expected on Friday, April 10th.
That's flashdown expected in about three days, 21 hours, and 49 minutes from now.
During the lunar flyby, and as part of Artemis II, it marked the first time in more than 50 years that humans were able to observe the moon directly
and provided a critical opportunity to practice how lunar science will be conducted during future Artemis missions.
The Moon preserves a near continuous record of solar system history that has been erased
on Earth and with no atmosphere, weather or plate tectonics, the lunar surface retains
evidence of ancient impacts, volcanism and solar activity that scientists can study today.
Studying the Moon helps scientists understand how planets formed and evolved, how the
Moon influenced Earth's history and how the early sun-shaped conditions across the
inner solar system.
The moon also serves as a unique platform for studying the broader universe.
The science on Artemis is designed around questions best answered by humans working alongside robotic
systems combining decades of robotic lunar data with real-time human judgment, context
and adaptability.
Currently on your screen, you're seeing a look at the Artemis real-time orbit website.
You can access this website at any time throughout the mission at nasa.gov.
slash track Artemis provides updates on the velocity as well
as the distance from Earth and the distance from the moon
of the Orion spacecraft and its crew.
The crew currently onboard the Orion spacecraft includes NASA
astronaut Reed Wiseman who is the commander for the mission,
NASA astronaut Victor Glover who is the pilot alongside the
two mission specialists who are Christina Cook and Victor
and Jeremy Hansen of the Canadian Space Agency.
Currently, the Orion spacecraft is about 250,000 miles away from the Earth,
and that distance now will continue to close down ahead of that splashdown on April 10th.
And they are now about 8,100 miles away from the moon,
and that distance will continue to increase as they are now in the return leg of their journey.
Go ahead and take a deep breath.
We will put that in work great to be talking to you to
This is Artemis Mission Control in Houston, Texas.
We're currently five days, three hours and 37 minutes
into the Artemis II mission.
The crew onboard the Orion spacecraft has recently concluded
their lunar observation period during the lunar flyby.
As part of that lunar flyby, the Orion spacecraft and its crew made the closest approach to the moon at a distance of 4,067 miles away from the surface at approximately 6 p.m. central time, 7 p.m. eastern time.
Now, although the Artemis II mission is a new opportunity to study the moon, teams are also conducting other scientific experiments including on the crew themselves.
Here's a little bit more about the science of the mission.
Artemis 2 is our return of humans to the moon, flying around the moon on board Orion, but
along with that we're doing a lot of great science.
One of the exciting things about the Artemis missions to the moon is that science is actually
a fundamental pillar of why we explore, why we're going, what we're doing in Artemis.
I think it's incredibly exciting that not only are we testing the vehicle, but we're
testing science on board.
Science where the astronauts are conducting experiments.
It's riding along with the astronauts.
We have astronauts looking outside the window and really observing the lunar surface.
It will help us understand the deep space environment.
It will help us understand how that environment affects our astronauts, our systems, and life
in general.
So deep space is a challenge for us because you have to leave Earth's protective magnetic
field.
Here in low Earth orbit, the crew members are protected from some of the harmful
radiation.
Going to the moon, they'll no longer be protected, so they'll have a higher radiation
exposure.
like Artemis 1, we have so many radiation sensors and detectors that are inside the
capsule so that we can fully understand and appreciate the radiation environment for protecting
our astronauts.
In my hand here, I'm holding a tissue chip model.
This is the exact design that it's going to be flying alongside the astronauts.
We'll be collecting samples from each of the crew members and we can make these organ
chips out of the astronauts themselves.
So every crew member will have their own avatar on board and then upon return we can evaluate
that deep space radiation environment and what that compares to the astronaut themselves.
Not only are they going to help change the course of medicine for the astronauts but revolutionizing
that on Earth as well.
We're looking at sleep, we're looking at team dynamics, we're looking at how you
interact with the environment.
We're also looking at the immune system.
So what are the biomarkers?
We're using saliva as a method to study hormones and different things in your body that may
change during a mission like this.
And then finally, how do we function after microgravity, you know, being close to the
moon then returning to Earth?
Which will ultimately help us achieve our goal of getting humans to Mars.
And then on top of that, we have an opportunity to look at the moon from deep space on
the far side for the first time in over 50 years.
Human eyeballs and brains back around the moon is going to unlock a new generation of lunar science
discovery. The human eyeball is capable of taking in so much data in just a split second. They'll be
able to tackle impact history, volcanic history. They'll be able to look at how the Albedo or
kind of the shade and hue of the moon and the color of the moon can tell us something about
how that terrain evolved over time. We're integrating science in ways that have never
been integrated into human exploration before. We have a front room mission control flight controller
position called the science officer. We have a brand new science back room where it's basically our
brain trust of lunar scientists and geologists supporting the crews of the future and Artemis II
will allow us to really test how this works so that future missions are really set up for success.
We'll also be deploying some CubeSats, they're small shoebox size spacecraft of their own.
They're each provided by another country, one of our partners, as they conduct their research
they'll complement what we are doing at the Moon with Orion.
It is so incredibly exciting to be a part of this mission. It has been, you know,
really one of the privileges of a lifetime. I can see the work I'm doing,
benefit crew members right now, and benefit the crew members and the teacher. So it's
incredibly exciting and it's very rewarding. As this rocket launches humanity off of the
the Earth, we'll be setting the stage through our science to prepare humanity to leave Earth
and explore the solar system.
And as part of that we are going to inhibit cabin leak detection, the edge key, manual
response is still available.
thumbs up.
This
Artemis Mission Control, again we're hearing some communication between the ground here
and the Artemis Flight Control Room in Houston, Texas, specifically the Capcom or capsule communicator
who for Orbit 2 is Tess Caswell and the crew onboard the Orion spacecraft,
that spacecraft named integrity by its crew.
They are preparing for an upcoming public affairs event so they are discussing the camera views
which we will see here shortly.
there on your screen on the left hand side you can see the Artemis real-time orbit website
or ERO.
The Artemis real-time orbit website there on the left hand side of your screen provides
updates on the velocity of the Orion spacecraft during its journey around the moon.
Following a lunar flyby earlier today, which concluded about an hour ago,
the crew has been conducting some cleanup tasks.
So they've been transferring some of their documentation, their photos and data
that they captured during the flyby to the ground to be evaluated by the science team.
And of course, some of that imagery will also be evaluated by the public affairs team here
and NASA and then shared with the world once it's available.
The crew will also have a post-linear fly-by conference
with the science team tomorrow following their sleep period
to go over some of their observations while it's still fresh
and at the top of their mind.
On the bottom right-hand corner of your screen,
you can see a look into the Artemis Flight Control Room here
and Mission Control Houston, specifically the Flight Director
Console and the CAPCOM or Capsule Communicator Console.
The flight director currently on console for orbit two is Diane Daly.
And throughout the Artemis II mission, there are three shifts or orbits of flight controllers
who provide 24-7 coverage and support to the Artemis II crew
and the Orion spacecraft and its systems during its journey around the moon.
We are expecting a splashdown on Friday, April 10th.
That splashdown will take place in about three days, 21 hours
in 33 minutes.
During the lunar flyby that took place earlier today, Orion, again, that spacecraft named
integrity by its crew past approximately 4,000 to 6,000 miles from the moon and provided the crew
with a full disc view of the lunar surface. And from that higher vantage point, much farther
than Apollo's lunar orbits, on average, the astronauts were able to observe both poles
and large-scale geological features in a single view. And there on your screen,
You're currently seeing a live look inside the cabin of the Orion spacecraft integrity Houston
We are three minutes out from an on-time start and we have adjusted the fan speed. We'll take a thumbs up if you're happy with it
Copy thumbs up
Parallel thumbs up
And there on your screen, you can see all of the Artemis II crew members,
CSA astronaut Jeremy Hansen just floated out of view behind the camera,
but you can still see NASA astronaut Reed Wiseman, NASA astronaut Christina Cook,
and NASA astronaut Victor Glover as they prepare for an upcoming public affairs downlink event,
which is scheduled to take place in just a couple of minutes from now.
And there floating back onto the screen is CSA
or Canadian Space Agency astronaut Jeremy Hansen.
He is making himself comfy on some of the ox
or Orion crew survival system suits that have been stowed
for the outbound and now return journey.
Shortly after the completion of these couple of public affairs downlink events, the crew
will begin winding down for their day and they will have the opportunity to eat dinner.
Some of the items on their menu today for dinner include chicken with corn and black
beans, sweet and sour pork, rice peel off, spicy green beans, citrus fruit salad, and
maple cream cookies.
All of the.
And now we will go ahead and stand by for the public affairs event beginning in just
Just about a minute.
Integrity Houston, no action for the DU-1 caution, we're taking a look.
Integrity, this is Houston, are you ready for the event?
Hello Houston integrity is ready for the event administrator Isaacman this is mission control
Houston please call integrity for a voice check integrity Jared Isaacman com check
Administrator Isaacman, we've got you loud and clear, sir.
How us?
I've got you loud and clear.
Artemis II crew, we have a very special guest
who wanted to be the first person to greet you
after your return from the far side of the moon.
Reed, Victor, Christina, and Jeremy,
it's my honor to introduce the President
of the United States of America, President Donald
J. Trump.
Over to you, sir.
Well, thank you very much, Jared.
And you are doing a fantastic job.
and hello, very special hello to Artemis too.
Today you've made history and made all America
really proud, incredibly proud.
We have a lot of things to be proud of lately,
but this is, there's nothing like what you're doing
circling around the moon for the first time
in more than a half a century
and breaking the all-time record
for the farthest distance from planet Earth.
Humans have really never seen anything
quite like what you're doing in a manned spacecraft.
It's really special.
I want to personally salute and congratulate Commander Reed
Weissman, pilot Victor Glover, mission specialist Christina
Koch, and Jeremy Hansen.
And I also want to thank the entire amazing team at NASA,
headed by Jared, who's a very special guy, by the way.
And you all made this day possible.
And you've really inspired the entire world, really.
Everybody's watching.
I find it incredible.
I just watched you go to the back of the moon
and people haven't been there in a long time, we can say,
but it's gonna be more and more prevalent
because we're gonna be doing a lot of traveling
and then you're gonna ultimately do
the whole big trip to Mars
and that's gonna be very exciting.
So you look at, we had no astronaut
has been to the moon since the days of Apollo program.
The Apollo program was also very special
but that was 50 years ago
and at long last America is back and America is back
in many ways stronger than ever before
with the hottest country anywhere in the world.
The Artemis crew flew in the most powerful rocket
NASA has ever made, ever launched,
traveled over a quarter of a million miles,
broke the distance record set by the legendary Apollo 13,
and America is a frontier nation
and the four brave astronauts of Artemis 2 are a modern day.
You really are modern-day pioneers, all of you, and one of them happens to be a neighbor.
You know who that is, right?
You have a special person over there, a neighbor, and we like our neighbor.
Your mission paves the way for America's return to the lunar surface very soon.
We're going all out.
We're doing everything we can, and it's set it up by Jared.
We'll plant our flag once again, and this time we won't just leave footprints.
establish a permanent presence on the moon and we'll push on to Mars. That'll be very exciting.
I'm waiting for that so much. I'd love to be here but maybe we won't quite make it in terms of timing
but we will be up in the moon and that's going to happen soon. So America will be second to none
in space and everything else that we're doing and we will continue to lead the
The whole thing into the stars is an incredible journey into the stars.
So I just wanted an honor to speak to you and I wanted to congratulate each and every
one of you and tell me what is the most unforgettable part of this really historic day.
The whole world is watching and listening.
Please tell me.
President, this call is certainly special to all of us, and we really have a lot of faith
in our Administrator Jared Eisenman, who is with you.
We appreciate his leadership in NASA and in the international community.
We are doing great things, and we are proud to be a part of it.
I have to tell you, as we came around the near side of the moon, seeing all the sights
that we've seen from Earth for all of our lives, but we're seeing them from a
different perspective and then we started to get a glimpse of the and we saw
sites oriental sites that no human has ever seen before not even in Apollo and
that was amazing for us and then the surprise of the day we just came out of
an eclipse where the Sun moon and the entire dark moon about that big right
out the window that we were watching we could see the corona of the Sun and
then we could see the planet train line up and when it Mars and all of us
commented how excited we are to watch this nation and this planet become a two planet species.
That is fantastic. You know I had a decision to make in my first term and the decision is what are
we going to do with NASA? Are we going to have it be revived or are we going to close it down?
And I had very little hesitation and it's really great to have somebody like Jared involved
because he really makes it much easier for me.
But it was not even a question in my own mind.
We just, we've spent what we had to do
and then of course we have Space Force
and Space Force is very much related to what you're doing.
And that was my baby.
I was a very important one and it's turning out,
it'll turn out to be truly one of the most important,
I believe decisions I've ever made.
So we're very proud of Space Force
and we're very proud of all of you.
Does anybody else have anything to say?
A lot of people listening.
Mr. President, to be here with you speaking about our incredible day today,
I think one of the biggest highlights was coming back from the far side of the
moon and having the first glimpses of planet earth again after being out of
communication for about 45 minutes.
It really just reminds you what a special place we have and how important
it is for our nation to, word to lead and not follow in exploring deep space.
I'd like to ask what was your feeling when you had no communication, zero communication, all of a sudden it was cut off by obviously your very special location.
What was your feeling when you had no communication, a little bit different perhaps?
Yes, Mr. President, it was cool.
I said a little prayer, but then I had to keep rolling.
I was actually recording scientific observations of the far side of the moon.
That is actually the time when we were the farther and the closest to the moon.
And so we were really able to make some of our most detailed observations of the far
side of the moon up close.
And so we were busy up here working really hard.
And I must say it was actually quite nice.
Did you see a difference, a big difference between the far side of the moon and the near
side of the moon?
Was there a difference in feel or difference in look?
What did you see?
Well, Mr. President, we certainly did and our side came really set us up well to understand
what they thought we might see.
The gravitational pull of the Earth has had a profound effect on the near side of the moon,
changing all those dark marries, those dark patches of the moon you see from Earth.
It's very different on the far side.
While you see some small patches of those Maori in deep craters, it's very much absent
on that side.
So that's really neat.
And while I have the microphone, sir, I just want to thank you on behalf of Canada.
The space leadership you spoke of from America truly is extraordinary.
I've said this many times before, a nation that leads like that and then creates and
sets big goals for humanity that brings other countries along with it is truly incredible.
And I know that's a very intentional, not a necessary decision, intentional decision
to lead by example and to allow other countries like Canada to share our gifts and help
you achieve these mutually beneficial goals like establishing a presence on the moon
and eventually go into Mars.
And Canadians are so proud to be a part of this program.
Well, I have to say, I spoke to a very special person,
Wayne Gretzky, who I think you know, the great one.
And I spoke to your prime minister
and many other friends I have in Canada.
They are so proud of you.
And you have a lot of courage.
I'm not sure if they'd want to do that.
I'm not even sure if the great one would want to do that,
to be honest with you, but you have a lot of courage
doing what you're doing, a lot of bravery
a lot of genius, but they're very, very proud of you.
I think we might have gotten cut off. It is a long distance. It's a long way. The reception's
been great. There's a little bit of about a nine-second delay, but no, I just had a statement
for, I don't know what you heard, but I was just saying they're very proud of your brilliant
person from Canada on the ship, and Wayne Gretzky is a great friend of mine, and he's
very proud of him, and the Prime Minister I spoke to, they're very, very honored
that you have a courageous person from Canada. You have a lot of courageous people from
Canada. So it was very nice. I'm not sure if you heard me say that, but it was very nice.
Yes, Mr. President, we heard that and we do love our Jeremy Hads and we love all our Canadian
astronauts. Jenny Gibbons, Josh Kutrick. They're just great people and they're such a welcome
addition to our corps. Great. Well, I really look forward to when we can,
And I want to look forward to seeing you in the Oval Office.
I'll ask Jared to bring you over and I'll ask for your autograph, because I don't really
ask for autographs much, but you deserve that.
You really are something, everybody's talking about this.
And I look forward to having you in the Oval Office at the White House, and we will
celebrate your incredible achievements and triumphs.
This is big, this is really big stuff.
The whole world is talking about it.
And if you have the time, I will certainly find the time.
I'll be pretty busy also, as you know, but I will absolutely find the time and we'll get
together and I'm going to be giving you a big salute on behalf of the American people
and beyond that.
Thank you for that, Mr. President.
And when you want us, we will be there.
And thank you for your leadership.
you to Jared for his leadership. Really, thank you for taking the time out today to visit NASA.
It's really special for us, but it's really special for the team on the ground. A whole
team of people all around the world pulled this off. And we just want to say thank you to all of
you for this. It is the thrill and honor of a lifetime to have been on this journey. Today
was amazing, but this three-year journey has been amazing, and it was made possible by the
American people and the Canadian people. And we're so grateful to you all. Thank you very much.
Well, thank you very much. And Jared, congratulations. We'll see you soon. And I know that you have
Mars very much in your mind. So we'll start thinking about that pretty soon, I think.
And thank you. Congratulations to everybody. I'll see you at the Oval Office.
Thank you for your time, Mr. President. It's been an honor.
Thank you very much. Bye.
Integrity. This is Houston ACR. That concludes the event. Thank you.
Thank you to all participants.
Integrity, we are now resuming operational audio communications.
Integrity Houston, great job on the event, Sister Hebsa.
We are on track to start the next event on time at 4.15.
Okay, sounds great.
We'll be ready.
This is Artemis Mission Control in Houston, Texas.
We just had that public affairs event with President Donald Trump
and the crew on board the Orion spacecraft and coming
up in about 10 minutes there will be another public affairs
event, that event taking place at a mission elapsed time
of five days, four hours and 15 minutes.
Currently on your screen you're seeing a look
at the Artemis real-time orbit website
which provides updates on the velocity as well
as the distance of the Orion spacecraft
from both Earth and the moon.
The Orion spacecraft and its crew, that crew including Reed Wiseman, Victor Glover,
Christina Cook, and Jeremy Hansen are currently about 250,000 miles away from the Earth
and that distance is starting to become smaller as they are now on the return leg
of their journey and they are about 9,300 miles away from the Moon.
They made their close approach to the Moon.
Integrity Houston with a question about fan speed.
We are wondering if this adjusted fan speed is something that you would like to keep going
forward or if it was just a specific change request for the events this evening.
Certainly for PAO events, this is an ideal fan speed.
If you're willing to give us this fan speed for routine habitability, I think we would
take it and try it for a while.
And Reid, we are able to support keeping the fan speed in this config, happy to keep it
here to collect data? Okay, you got four happy astronauts in here. We'll take it. Obviously,
we'll need to go and exercise. We'll need to bump it up, but I think for clients living,
this will be great. We copy, and we love seeing those smiles.
.
Please send integrity for docking cameras.
Go ahead.
Just want to make sure we have the configure expecting.
I have the dual camera bracket is installed, the window shape is closed,
and the docking camera is stowed in its Alpha-3 storage area.
That's a good config.
Thank you.
And while I've got you, we are three minutes out from an on-time start of the next event.
This is Artemis Mission Control in Houston, Texas.
You can see a live look of the Artemis II crew inside the O'Brien spacecraft cabin
as they prepare for another public affairs downlink event.
There on your screen is CSA astronaut Jeremy Hansen along
with NASA astronaut Reed Wiseman
and NASA astronaut Victor Glyver popping up.
Earlier today the crew completed their lunar fly
by observation period, during which the Orion spacecraft
and its crew passed approximately 4,000
to 6,000 miles from the moon and provided the astronauts
with a full disc view of the lunar surface.
And from that higher vantage point, the astronauts were able
to observe both poles in large scale geological features
and a single view.
Towards the tail end of that observation period,
they also were able to see an eclipse.
And that eclipse period lasted about an hour
was when the sun was hidden from view behind the opposite side
of the moon from the perspective of Orion.
Since then, the crew has been working to clean up some
of their observations and transfer some
of the data and imagery down to the ground to begin processing
and the science team will take a look at that imagery
as it comes down ahead of a post lunar Phi by conference tomorrow
with the crew following their sleep period.
Now we are standing by for a second public affairs event taking place
in about a minute.
Integrity, this is Houston, are you ready for the event?
event. Houston integrity is ready for the event. Administrator Isaacman, this is mission
control Houston. Please call integrity for a voice check. Integrity Jared Isaacman,
come check.
Administrator Azigman, we've got you loud and clear up here.
I've got you loud and clear and let's see if we can top that last PAO event.
That was pretty special.
So we are going to spend the next 20 minutes doing Q&A from a number of questions that
have been submitted and we are going to start with one from me.
You all have spent years preparing for this moment and imagining what it must be like
when you look down at the moon, at the lunar surface, what has surprised you all that you
you did not anticipate.
Administrator, great to chat with you.
Just something that just shocked me because
really using imagery and just the three-dimensionality of it.
You know from your experience of seeing the Earth from space
how it just seems different.
And you look out in depth of things.
And when we were on the far side of the moon looking back at Earth,
it was just so obvious you had this sphere out in front of you
of the moon in this three-dimensional.
You really felt like you weren't in a capsule.
You'd been transported to the far side of the moon.
It really just bent your mind. It was an extraordinary human experience. I'm so grateful for it.
Integrity, Jared, anyone else want to answer that one?
You know, we had an amazing launch.
The SLS is quite a powerful rocket and got us into a 1200 by, you know, eventually a 100-mile orbit
and clearly powered speed and then we did our translator injection and we were going quite fast.
And so with all of that speed though, it still took us days to get here
and so the scope of all of the things to a 321-foot tall rocket was amazing.
It just puts the power required to do this in perspective.
But then even with all that power, to get to those velocities, it still took us days.
And the breadth of the distance we had to cover.
Watching the distance from Earth count up and the distance from the moon count down was one of the most surprising things I've enjoyed.
Well, as I was trying to formulate an answer, at first, I couldn't do anything because there
are so many things to choose from.
I'll try to just narrow it down, but I'm going to go with something we did yesterday, a manual
pilot test objective where we just basically got to sit at the vehicle.
It was Jeremy and I this time and just drive around using the rotational hand controller,
racially just drive it with the stick and how well it handled,
how tight the control algorithms were, and watching it respond
when we actually degraded it on purpose by going
into three degrees of freedom control
by actually inhibiting some of the jets, which even though we
have jet redundancy of course for each other
in these complicated algorithms.
So it was just amazing to be in a deep space spacecraft
and just be flying it around by hand.
The one other thing I'll say is how fast it has gone by.
I'm not ready to go home.
I can't believe that something this cramped of quarters can fly by
and still be fun every single minute.
And I'll just close out with, I think just scale, Jared,
is the thing that is just blowing my mind.
You know, you flew Polaris Dawn to some amazing Apogee numbers
And on the International Space Station, we're 250 nautical miles up, and that's the most
beautiful view I think a human could ever experience.
And we are dealing with numbers that are 250,000 miles.
And every time mission control points to this vehicle, either at the moon or at Earth,
it's a way.
And it reminds me every day that humans have to go, we've got to explore.
We've got to go further to expand our knowledge, expand our horizons.
And every time we take another step forward, it makes the world seem a little bit smaller
and a little bit more manageable and just putting these numbers in perspective it is
impossible as a human to look at these displays and comprehend them and and but here we are
and NASA is doing this and international team is doing this and they're doing it very well.
Excellent words integrity so a certainly a very wild insertion orbit I can imagine
the contrast between perigee and apogee the scale of the scale of it all the 3d
seeing the moon come alive and then certainly manual control will every
every dragon crew for the last five years is very jealous on that okay so we're
going to we're going to questions here this one you all you the Artemis 2 crew
inspire all of us but what inspires you
I think as you get older, your answer to that question changes a lot.
Certainly when I was a young boy and a young man just dancing an airplane flying overhead
to me, that really lit a fire in me.
And then I think when you reach your middle age, it is interesting to watch leadership
throughout the world kind of change the course of human.
You can watch that unfold.
And now that I'm just a little bit over 50, you'll be there soon.
Now that I'm just a little bit over 50, I mean, it all ties back to just family and you you understand just how much
you the people that you surround yourself with and that is really every every night when you go to bed. That's really what you end up thinking. At least that's what I end up thinking.
Thank you. All right. So
So, here's a question, it's a good one, so for the Artemis III crew, what is the first,
what is the advice you would pass along for the next astronauts that will go in Orion?
That's a great question, Jared.
We've actually been thinking about the Artemis II,
sorry, the Artemis III crew,
since we were assigned as the Artemis II crew,
it was the beginning of how we came up with
how we wanted to fly this mission,
how we wanted to buy down risk for the program,
and values as a crew.
And so, you know, over the course of these three years,
we've taken a lot of notes.
So we've almost got a book to hand them.
But I think a few practical things,
you know, just sitting here,
we've been living for the past six days.
how you pack is a huge impact to how you will live on the journey.
And so things like food and your hygiene products.
And then you know what's going on with our waste management system.
The technology that we have, practicing that and being familiar with that,
and being prepared mentally.
I used it on the space station.
I used it at home and training.
But I'll be honest, I wasn't really prepared to have to use it for
over half the mission, but we adapt and overcome.
And so I can't wait to talk to that crew.
I'm glad you said it or else I was.
We definitely have to fix some of the plumbing.
OK, this question is from Merriam Webster.
So wordy one here.
So you are going to be, well, you've already surpassed
more than 250,000 miles from Earth
farther than any human has gone before.
So what are some words that come to mind
when you try to wrap your mind around
in this very unique experience.
I'll be honest with you, the main word
because superlatives just don't do it justice is humility.
We would never be here if it weren't for so many people
that came before us, starting with Neil Armstrong,
Catherine Johnson, Dorothy Vaughn,
civil rights movement leaders,
everyone who worked on this spacecraft
before we got here in our three years of training,
we went all over the country
and even to our European and Canadian partners
to see the people who have put their hands on this hardware,
the millions of parts from every valve,
from every valve to this entire thing,
the people that put on harnesses every day
to rig it up in the VAB, they all passed the record.
We definitely didn't pass the record up here alone.
So this is actually very similar to the question
the President of the United States
asked just a brief bit ago.
But during the quiet moments on your journey
when you were out of contact with everyone here on Earth,
what were some of the thoughts that tended
to occupy your mind most?
Yeah, as Victor said earlier, when we were on the far side of the moon and out of contact
with planet Earth, we all knew it and it was a milestone.
We saw Earth disappear, your set.
But we were so busy with the science and we have such faith in our vehicle integrity,
faith in mission control that we were just at complete peace and just doing our job and
just trying to do a good job to collect as much science data as we could while we were
on the far side of the moon and we were just giddy in here like of our lives.
He's being a bit humble but as soon as we went out of calm with planet earth we did
have maple cookies as we just gathered together for about 30 seconds each one of us had a
maple cream cookie and then right back into the science.
But we had to take a moment to honor that time going behind
Earth.
And it was a very, I'm sorry, going behind the moon
and out of touch with Earth.
And that was a very surreal moment for this crew.
Copy that.
Copy good maple cookies on the far side.
And how has this journey changed?
How has this journey already changed the way
you see our home planet and humanity's future among the stars.
There are so many directions, I think we could go with that.
And I just, you know, I, I think that there's, you know,
glow, but I think real impact is local.
And I, I, is, is to see the earth as an entire thing and look
at it, this system and to see it all in once, but I'm,
and I, my daughter's in just the, you know, the things
that we can impact directly, the people that I can touch,
that I can speak to, hug and show love and gratitude toward.
is the thing that I think is going to change in last.
And you also talked about the future
that we're going to have in the stars.
And this mission, I think, we swung for the fence
and launched on our first try after learning a lot earlier
this year.
But I think it set the stage for us
to go out and continue to swing for the fence.
Our and our Ryan SLS and the ground systems programs
to go and get the next one teed up
so that that crew can knock it off out of the park.
And so I have huge expectations for what's coming next.
All right, good words.
Are you feeling homesick for Earth?
I will tell you, last to my eyes,
I did start thinking about getting home.
It's not a homesickness at all,
but the first time, probably in three years,
I let my mind get past the moon and back towards home,
and I had to catch myself right there.
You're an operator just like we are,
and you know that is the place to be when you're up here.
We gotta look one step ahead.
What's our next burn?
How are we setting up our trajectory to get home?
And we are gonna do that.
We are locked in, and we are definitely excited
for the second half of this mission,
and we are on guard.
We are the first crew to fly this vehicle.
We are ready for any contingency in any scenario.
And we are gonna stay locked in every second
until we are back on that Navy ship
and then home reunited with our families.
And copy that astronauts like being in space.
That checks out.
Okay, there's a lot of questions
from the space photography community.
How are the pictures going so far?
Well, we all love getting our hands on cameras and our eyes behind the lens because we're
just trying to share the incredible things that we're seeing and that's obviously the
best way we can try to do that.
I've been into night sky photography for a long time and so the dream come true for
me.
I have thought specifically to that community.
The time lapses I've been trying to get, those are a little tougher because we have
a very dynamic vehicle.
It's not like being on ISS where you can get the city lights below and the auroras and
the spinning stars around the North Star.
There's a lot going on.
But what we got to do next matter is out of this world.
When we viewed that eclipse, that was the one time we all said we literally cannot
capture this with a camera.
Anything else?
I think we've been able to, we've really put our hearts and minds into making sure we understand
it so that we can bring that home to everyone.
But having to set the low light features for Earth shine on the moon while it's in a
clip, that was a new one.
I had to dig deep in my book for that one.
And thanks for the iPhone, it's been working great.
glad to hear that and there are a couple billion people back here on Earth that are extremely
excited to look at the imagery you've captured up there.
Okay, well, I want to thank you all, integrity.
So Reed, Victor, Christina, Jeremy, on behalf of NASA and space-loving people across the
world. Thank you for taking us with you to the moon. Thank you for, thank you for
your courage. All of your beautiful words that we've heard. You represent the
absolute best of us. We're proud of you and we look forward to welcoming you,
welcoming you back safely to the good earth very soon. Godspeed and go Artemis 2.
Thank you so much, Administrator. We are just proud to be a part of this team doing our
work every day and we are supported by a huge world of humans and we are just honored
to be a part of that. Thank you. We'll see you soon.
Integrity, this is Houston ACR. That concludes the event. Thank you.
Thank you to all participants. Integrity, we are now resuming operational audio comm.
This is Artemis Mission Control in Houston, Texas.
That second public affairs event with NASA administrator Isaac Mann
and the crew onboard the Orion spacecraft named integrity now complete
and they're on your screen.
You're seeing a live view from the Orion spacecraft specifically
from the camera on its solar ray wings
and you can see a crescent Earth there.
The crew is now officially on the return leg of their journey
and the earth is now their target with that splashdown targeted for April 10th.
This is Michigan Control Houston inside the Artemis flight control room as the lunar flyby
by coverage is coming to a close.
You can see a final look there of the Orion spacecraft
and that crescent moon in the distance.
The Artemis II crew inside the Orion spacecraft named integrity
lifted off atop the Space Launch System rocket
on Wednesday, April 1st from NASA's Kennedy Space Center
in Florida.
This crew is the first to live and work inside the Orion
spacecraft and about 25 hours after launch,
Orion conducted its TLI, or Translator Injection Burn,
which committed Orion to departing high Earth orbit
and set us up for today's flyby.
TLI also served as the spacecraft's deorbit,
burn as it slingshot Orion around the moon
and set the crew on its free return trajectory
with that splashdown slated for Friday, April 10th.
Last night, on flight day five,
the crew entered the lunar sphere of influence,
the point at which the pole of the moon's gravity
became stronger than the pole of Earth's gravity,
and the crew will remain in this lunar sphere
of influence until about 12, 25 p.m. central,
1.25 p.m. Eastern on April 7th.
Today, the crew spent the majority of their day
making science observations and capturing imagery
as part of the lunar flyby,
during which Orion and its crew
passed approximately 4,000 to 6,000 miles from the moon
and provided the crew with a full disc view
of the lunar surface.
From that higher vantage point,
the crew was able to observe both poles
and large-scale geologic features in a single view
and the Artemis II crew also became the first humans
to directly observe certain far-side regions of the moon
with unaided eyes.
During the lunar flyby, the crew also surpassed
the Apollo 13 distance record and reached
and made that far this distance from the Earth
during their mission at a distance of 252,756 miles
away from Earth.
Integrity, Houston, with two updates.
I'm used to going ahead for any, with you, Peter.
Hey, Victor. Again, awesome job on both of those events. The team down here really enjoyed following along.
I've got two sync items for you. The first is that, based on ground schedules, we'd like to pull your flight director conference up before your PMC.
your PMC, so we'll start the Flight Director Conference at the time the PMC is currently
scheduled.
And the second item is just following up on the DU1 caution.
We believe this is a recurrence of what we saw with DU2 earlier in the mission.
It's back up and it's ready for you to reconfigure your displays as you wish.
And I see you have that in work.
Okay, great.
We would love a main and secondary helpline fan.
It's really the main one.
Check in.
Okay.
Main and secondary dump lines are really the main lines.
Check in.
And read back with you on the dump lines.
The main dump is open and it's proceeding very slowly, but the secondary is