UPDATE (April 10): The crew is preparing for splashdown, crew module separation, and entry interface (for a 5:07PM Pacific splashdown off the coast of San Diego, California). Picture perfect splashdown.
UPDATE (April 9): The Orion spacecraft is scheduled to splashdown on April 10th at around 5:07PM Pacific (8:07PM Eastern) off the coast of San Diego, California.
Source: Artemis II Multimedia Gallery
UPDATE (April 6): The Orion spacecraft reached the farthest point that humans have ever traveled (from the Earth), and also completed its pass around the far side of the moon during its lunar flyby. Following is one of the images of the near side of the moon as the spacecraft approached for its pass.
Source: NASA’s “Journey to the Moon” gallery
UPDATE (April 3): The trans lunar injection occurred as planned on April 2nd and the spacecraft is now enroute to the moon.
UPDATE: Artemis II has lifted off at 6:35 p.m. EDT (2235 UTC)!
Artemis II is a manned test flight which will takes humans around the moon for the first time in over 5 decades. The original Apollo program as we ended up learning, was filled with a lot of risk taking; flight safety for humans was a key priority for what ended up becoming Artemis.
The following is the VOD of the launch window through lift off and some post lift off manuveur burns:
Mission Control Live Broadcast:
Live views from the Orion spacecraft (continuous live stream until they reach the moon, orbit, and encounter LOS on the far side):
IMHO, this is probably one of the last great things the United States will contribute to humanity (decades of hard work by the actual people who worked on the systems, hardware, processes for operations, etc through different administrations) for a long while IF it doesn’t end up being defunded.
I also highly disliked the short “America 250” clip played during the live broadcast… as soon as I heard “American exceptionalism” mentioned, I recoiled in disgust because in light of what has been the decline of the United States, that is now considered PROPAGANDA. Shame on the NASA administrator (Jared Isaacman who is an ally of Elon Musk) for forcing that into the broadcast.
