It’s prime time for the Artemis 2 mission’s historic round-the-moon flyby, which includes setting a new distance record for human travel beyond Earth and laying eyes on a supersized solar eclipse.
The lunar encounter on April 6 will mark the first time astronauts have traveled to the moon since the Apollo 17 mission in 1972. They won’t be landing this time, but they will be getting a close look at features on the lunar far side that human eyes have never seen directly before.
Artemis 2’s Orion space capsule is on a slingshot trajectory that will take advantage of the moon’s gravitational field to execute a U-turn and head back toward Earth without the need for a major engine burn.
The show starts at 1 p.m. ET (10 a.m. PT) on NASA+, YouTube and other streaming video services.
“I do anticipate a big bump … as we have this really key moment in time where we’re flying around,” Lori Glaze, acting associate administrator for NASA’s Exploration Systems Development Mission Directorate, said today. “We’re breaking the Apollo record. We’re going to have an eclipse, we’re going to have all of these amazing observations. I really think we’re going to get another big spike. I’m really looking forward to that.”
But it will take hours for the flyby to run its course. It will take hours more for the crew to download the imagery they capture, and it’s likely to take days longer to share all the fruits of the six-hour flyby sequence with the public. The sense of drama won’t be as high as it was for, say, the “Apollo 13” movie. But Kelsey Young, Artemis 2’s lunar science lead, says it will be an important event nonetheless.
“This is a unifying moment for all of us, and we’ve put our best foot forward into preparing this mission for success,” she said. “We know what it’s going to mean to connect to the moon in that way.”
The primary goal of the Artemis 2 mission is to test many of the systems that will come into play for future landings on the moon, starting no earlier than 2028 with Artemis 4. Four astronauts — NASA commander Reid Wiseman, pilot Victor Glover, mission specialist Christina Koch and Canadian astronaut Jeremy Hansen — have been trying on spacesuits, troubleshooting Orion’s toilet and test-driving the spacecraft’s manual piloting system.
Artemis 2’s crew has already made history: Koch is the first woman to take a trip to the moon, Glover is the first Black astronaut to do so, and Hansen is the first non-U.S. citizen to fly on a lunar mission.
During the 6.5-hour period of lunar observations, they’ll make detailed observations of little-seen areas of the lunar far side — areas that were veiled in darkness during the Apollo missions between 1968 and 1972. One of the prime targets is Orientale Basin, a nearly 600-mile-wide crater that straddles the moon’s near side and far side. It’s considered a textbook example of a multi-ring impact basin.
NASA’s Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter has mapped the entire moon, including the far side, but mission managers say the crew’s human eyes may be able to pick up on details that don’t come across as well in photos. The astronauts will also check out potential landing sites for future robotic and crewed missions to the lunar surface.
Artemis 2’s science team has given the crew a list of 30 observation targets. “The quickest time per target tomorrow will be roughly eight minutes, and some of the targets — which are kind of crew discussion-focused— are longer, on the order of 20 minutes,” Young said.
One of the flyby’s highlights is a solar eclipse that will be like no solar eclipse seen from Earth. From our planetary perspective, the disk of the moon is just big enough to cover the full disk of the sun during a total eclipse. But because of the relative distances involved, Artemis 2’s astronauts will see the sun slip behind a much larger lunar disk.
“They’ll be able to observe the solar corona right around sunset and sunrise,” Young said. “They’ll also be able to take pictures of several planets that will be visible in view. That includes Earth, of course, Mercury, Venus, Mars and Saturn, and [they’ll] also be able to look for potential Earthshine effects, which is literally the illuminated Earth shedding glow onto the near side of the moon.”
The crew will also try to take a new version of Apollo 8’s “Earthrise” photograph, showing our planet rising from the lunar horizon. The original “Earthrise” is one of the Apollo era’s best-known images — and helped foster the phenomenon known as the Overview Effect.
In a sense, Artemis 2’s lunar rendezvous begins at 12:42 a.m. ET April 6 (9:42 p.m. PT April 5), when the Orion spacecraft is 41,072 miles away from the moon. That’s when Orion transitions from the region of space where Earth’s gravitational field is dominant to the region where the moon’s gravitational field takes precedence. But the key phase of the lunar encounter begins more than 12 hours later.
Here’s the schedule of events. All times are PT; add three hours for ET.
- 10 a.m.: NASA has streaming 24/7 coverage of the Artemis 2 mission via YouTube, but the space agency’s focused coverage of the lunar flyby begins at 10 a.m. PT (1 p.m. ET).
- 10:30 a.m.: Science officer briefs the crew on goals for flyby.
- 10:56 a.m.: Artemis 2 crew due to surpass record set by Apollo 13 crew in 1970 for the farthest humans have traveled from Earth.
- 11:45 a.m.: Lunar observations begin.
- 3:44 p.m.: Mission Control temporarily loses communication with the crew as the Orion spacecraft passes behind the moon.
- 3:45 p.m.: During “Earthset,” Earth glides behind the moon from Orion’s perspective.
- 4:02 p.m.: Closest approach to the lunar surface at 4,070 miles.
- 4:07 p.m.: Orion’s maximum distance from Earth (252,760 miles).
- 4:25 p.m.: “Earthrise” marks Earth coming back into view on the opposite edge of the moon. Mission Control expected to resume communication with the astronauts.
- 5:35-6:32 p.m.: The sun passes behind the moon from the crew’s perspective, creating a solar eclipse.
- 6:20 p.m.: Lunar observations conclude.
Orion will leave the lunar sphere of influence at 10:25 a.m. PT April 7 (1:25 p.m. ET) when the spacecraft is once again 41,072 miles from the moon. Splashdown in the Pacific Ocean is scheduled for April 10.
In other developments:
- Mission Control gave the go-ahead for the crew to use Orion’s toilet for No. 1 as well as No. 2. Use of the toilet had been limited due to ice blockage in a wastewater vent line, but the spacecraft was reoriented to point the vent toward the sun and melt the ice.
- The astronauts practiced getting into their spacesuits in as little as 15 minutes, to prepare for any emergency that might arise.
- The mission team planned to execute an engine burn tonight to make a slight correction in the Orion spacecraft’s trajectory.
Check back with Cosmic Log for daily updates about Artemis 2.
