EverythingScience

Since everyone always asks... 🤔 The universal waste management system aboard the Orion spacecraft is a compact, 5-cubic-foot toilet designed for microgravity. Solid waste is stored in odor-controlled canisters, while pre-treated urine is vented overboard daily.

Artemis II successfully deployed 4 CubeSats in high Earth orbit.  These satellites, developed with our Artemis Accords partners DLR, CONAE, 우주항공청 KASA, and وكالة الفضاء السعودية, will demonstrate radiation research, space weather monitoring, and new technologies that will be critical to advancing future deep-space exploration.

In their first live downlink event, NASA astronauts Reid Wiseman, Victor Glover, Christina Koch, and CSA (Canadian Space Agency) astronaut Jeremy Hansen spoke with ABC and Fox News to discuss their mission so far. The conversations took place on Thursday, April 2, with the Artemis II crew aboard NASA's Orion spacecraft making their way to the Moon.

Fun fact: The main engine behind the boost to the moon flew before on six Space Shuttle Atlantis missions. The European Service Module has 33 engines, but this is the only one capable of sending the Orion spacecraft towards the Moon, some 380 000 kilometres away.

🌚 We’re halfway there. At the time of posting this (02:00 UTC), the Artemis II mission is about halfway to the Moon. When the astronauts arrive, they will conduct a lunar flyby and collect scientific observations of the Moon’s surface.

🌐 Live stream 📝 Live timeline 🗺 Live position ⬅️ Trajectory animation

Artemis II Science Officer, reporting for duty. 🚀 There’s a new “SCIENCE” seat in the main NASA Artemis flight control room. Yesterday, Kelsey Young of NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center became the first person to step into this role during an Artemis mission. The Science Officer represents a whole community. Just one floor away, in a backroom at Mission Control, the Artemis II Lunar Science Team is hard at work. They have been preparing for this moment – and getting astronauts ready for Moon observing missions – for years. They’ve led training expeditions to Earth's most Moon-like places, custom-built lunar geology classes, worked out the fine points of photographing the Moon from space, and spent countless hours in mission simulations. Now, together with the crew and flight controllers, they’re not just helping Artemis II reach its full science potential—they’re laying a strong foundation for future missions. Meet the Artemis II Science Officers: go.nasa.gov/4bRILw9

You've seen his visualizations. Now, meet the man who knows the far side of the Moon like the back of his hand. Ernie Wright maps the Moon, which comes in handy when training NASA Artemis astronauts to see parts of the lunar surface humans have never laid eyes on before.

Working up an appetite! As Victor Glover gets in his exercise for the day, Jeremy R. Hansen is preparing the crew's midday meal.

Artemis II update: our European Service Module's main engine performed the translunar injection so precisely that flight controllers in Houston decided to cancel the first of three outbound trajectory correction burns on the way to the Moon🥳

Lights, camera… lunar action. 📸🌕 For Artemis II, Orion will carry 31 cameras designed to capture the mission from every angle. From external cameras mounted on the solar arrays to internal cabin views documenting crew life, these imaging systems will record key moments like launch, solar array deployment, and the spacecraft’s distant journey around the Moon. A dedicated optical navigation camera will photograph Earth and the Moon to help Orion determine its position in deep space, while handheld Nikon Z9 cameras give the crew the ability to capture high‑resolution imagery through the windows.

In this image, also taken from the Orion capsule, we see the divide between night and day, known as the terminator, cutting across Earth. Whether awake or dreaming, we're all here on this planet together.

These two images were taken by Reid Wiseman only minutes apart. The stark difference is the result of camera settings. In the first, a longer shutter speed let in much more light from Earth, while the shorter shutter speed in the second emphasizes our planet's nighttime glow.

That's us! 🌍 The Artemis II crew captured beautiful, high-resolution images of our home planet during their journey to the Moon. As Christina H Koch put it: "You guys look great."

‍This looks like it's a daytime shot, but, it's actually taken from the dark side of Earth, with the planet illuminated by moonlight. This lets faint details like the aurora, stars and the sodium layer show up without over exposing the planet.

“I’m the space plumber, I’m proud to call myself the space plumber.” Mission specialists like Christina H Koch train for all roles so they can jump in wherever they’re needed. Sometimes that means fixing vital machinery, like the spacecraft toilet.

🌚 Nominal translunar injection burn complete. The Artemis II crew is officially on the way to the Moon. America is back in the business of sending astronauts to the Moon. This time, farther than ever before.

Artemis II launch from the tower in slow motion. ‍Graded and re-interpolated by me, shot by NASA!

Artemis II launch in VERY slow motion

Just 1,500 feet (457 m) from the Artemis II launch, we deployed our special high-resolution, slow-motion camera to record the blast-off in jaw-dropping detail at 2,000 frames per second. Find out how we did it: on.natgeo.com/0BXGmi

Time-lapse of the successful ICPS-Orion proximity test!