Artemis Moon Mission 2026

[Mick West]

Source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tf_UjBMIzNo


Launching soon (hopefully). Human's first trip to the Moon (orbit only) for 50 years.

What will be interesting will be the reaction of the "space is fake", "Earth is flat", and to a degree "People never went to the moon" people.

 

[JMartJr]

They're off!

I suspect the "I don't understand this, so it must be fake" statements to begin within seconds.

(I was actually seeing them before the launch, but now they can be based on the current mission, so maybe we'll get some new claims.)

 

[purpleivan]

It was a great shot showing the separation from onboard, a shame that they quickly cut from it to the much less impressive looking, simulation view.

 

[jdog]

They're off!

View attachment 89337

I suspect the "I don't understand this, so it must be fake" statements to begin within seconds.

(I was actually seeing them before the launch, but now they can be based on the current mission, so maybe we'll get some new claims.)

There are already two "orb" threads on /r/ufos, including a comment to look for them in this stretch of video... (A third one got whacked, probably for snark.)

 

[Mick West]

I actually clipped that bit of the video, as it's a great example of loads of ice particles zipping in different directions and at different distances - somewhat more violently that ISS examples, but still cool.

 

[John J.]

There appears to be a malfunction- hopefully it can be rectified.

BBC News 23:57 UTC, 02 April 2026, "'Great view': Nasa spacecraft orbiting Earth after spectacular launch on Moon mission", https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/live/c4g4ygw0r02t

One hopes the crew checked there was no-one behind the privacy curtain before they took off.

"Well, I was doing last-minute checks on the capsule when I felt nature call, and it's a long way down the service tower, so I knew I shouldn't but didn't think it could do any harm... next thing I know, the crew were clambering in; I was hoping I might be able to creep past them but I didn't get the opportunity. Should've said something, I guess... It was all hushed up, of course, but yeah, I am kinda proud of being one of the five humans to have travelled furthest from the Earth.... I've boldly gone where no-one had gone before."

 

[JMartJr]

"I told you all to go before we left home." "Houston, we've got a wee problem, so to speak."

 

[FatPhil]

It was a great shot showing the separation from onboard, a shame that they quickly cut from it to the much less impressive looking, simulation view.

No need to be such a negative nancy!

*wink*

 

[JMartJr]

The Artemis II crew, working closely with mission control in Houston, were able to restore the Orion spacecraft's toilet to normal operations following the proximity operations demonstration.

https://www.nasa.gov/blogs/missions...eams-successfully-troubleshoot-orions-toilet/

It will now be possible to boldly go where no one has gone before... or at least not recently.

 

[Giddierone]

This guy captured something odd (or maybe not):

Source: https://youtu.be/KedHFmomaCM?si=QqNwOtC9UEFMIRIc

The double flash at 1:22 in the 11" main telescope video and at 8:49 in the 80mm refractor video (t+ 1:10 roughly) are a true mystery to me. They were captured in two independent cameras, a Blackmagic Pocket Cinema 4K with a 0.63 focal reducer and a Canon 90D respectively, with two different telescopes that were not perfectly co-aligned, yet the flashes appear in the same place relative to the rocket. This discounts the possibility of a lens flare, hot pixel, or other individual camera artifact. I spotted one of the weather balloons being launched from the Cape, but I was north of that balloon and south of the rocket. I also know from experience that my telescope will easily resolve weather balloons at this kind of range. NASA's WB-57 was also positioned south of me from what I've seen on flight tracking sites.

 

[MonkeeSage]

This guy captured something odd (or maybe not):

Source: https://youtu.be/KedHFmomaCM?si=QqNwOtC9UEFMIRIc

The double flash at 1:22 in the 11" main telescope video and at 8:49 in the 80mm refractor video (t+ 1:10 roughly) are a true mystery to me. They were captured in two independent cameras, a Blackmagic Pocket Cinema 4K with a 0.63 focal reducer and a Canon 90D respectively, with two different telescopes that were not perfectly co-aligned, yet the flashes appear in the same place relative to the rocket. This discounts the possibility of a lens flare, hot pixel, or other individual camera artifact. I spotted one of the weather balloons being launched from the Cape, but I was north of that balloon and south of the rocket. I also know from experience that my telescope will easily resolve weather balloons at this kind of range. NASA's WB-57 was also positioned south of me from what I've seen on flight tracking sites.

Not sure if this is the right answer but seems to be what he is going with.


Source: https://x.com/turndownformars/status/2039599837205975301



Source: https://x.com/astroferg/status/2039601017638076621

 

[JMartJr]

They have made the trans lunar injection burn that sends the spacecraft outbound to and around the moon, into a "free return trajectory" which means the path they are on will whip them around the moon and back towards Earth without any other major engine burns, though they will likely do course corrections burns to tweak the trajectory...

Artemis II's mission management gave the all-clear Thursday for the Orion spacecraft to move through space with a translunar injection burn, one of the most critical moments in NASA's first crewed mission to the moon in more than 50 years. Now, the spacecraft is out of the Earth's orbit and heading on a course for the moon.

The translunar injection (TLI) is the last major burn, or the firing up of engines to maneuver through space, on the Artemis II mission. Though it will make smaller burns, the TLI burn puts Orion on a path to use the moon's gravity to fly around it.

https://www.houstonpublicmedia.org/...emis-engine-burn-moon-earth-orbit-space-nasa/

They had me a little nervous, I was tracking this while at dinner, surreptitiously glancing at my phone, and while the "GO" decision for the burn was widely reported, the successful burn has not gotten a lot of coverage.

They're on their way outbound!

 

[Ravi]

Sadly, the launch and the effort to accomplish this, was hardly (at all?) covered in the Dutch news. It seems in Europe we are stuck in the "DT is bad, so all of the 343 million American people are stupid", which angers me greatly. It tells me more about the state of Europe than the state of the US if you ask me.

 

[purpleivan]

Looking at the websites of the two countries that I have experience of (the UK and Norway), the coverage seems to be about the same as on comparible sites in the US. By today, I don't think any media, in the US or elsewhere, other than space specific ones, have Artemis II as their top story.

Most sites I've look at have Artemis II coverage just a little below their headline story. The ones I looked to for coverage (mainly the BBC, The Guardian and CNN) had it as their top story for the launch, then shared that position with events in and around Iran, for the following day. After that it's dropped down to a a tier below the headline, with some sites (e.g. BBC News) still providing live rolling updates on progress of the mission.

I'd say that the world generally is just more concerned about the ongoing war in the middle east and all that entails, both there and at home, than in 4 people on a free return trajectory flight around the moon. If there was no war there, then Artemis II would almost certainly be getting higher profile coverage, regardless of who was in the White House.

 

[Hevach]

They have made the trans lunar injection burn that sends the spacecraft outbound to and around the moon, into a "free return trajectory" which means the path they are on will whip them around the moon and back towards Earth without any other major engine burns, though they will likely do course corrections burns to tweak the trajectory...

Artemis II's mission management gave the all-clear Thursday for the Orion spacecraft to move through space with a translunar injection burn, one of the most critical moments in NASA's first crewed mission to the moon in more than 50 years. Now, the spacecraft is out of the Earth's orbit and heading on a course for the moon.

The translunar injection (TLI) is the last major burn, or the firing up of engines to maneuver through space, on the Artemis II mission. Though it will make smaller burns, the TLI burn puts Orion on a path to use the moon's gravity to fly around it.

https://www.houstonpublicmedia.org/...emis-engine-burn-moon-earth-orbit-space-nasa/

They had me a little nervous, I was tracking this while at dinner, surreptitiously glancing at my phone, and while the "GO" decision for the burn was widely reported, the successful burn has not gotten a lot of coverage.

They're on their way outbound!

https://youtube.com/e-0OIGVRWd8

Something that didn't get reported that I've seen is that the TLI burn was not direct from LEO as it was with Apollo or Artemis 1. They first went into a 70,000 km x 115 km orbit where they did a number of tests and demonstrations with the spacecraft systems. This means Artemis 2 set the record for the highest altitude of a spacecraft still in a closed orbit around Earth by an immense margin (Polaris Dawn is the prior record holder at 1400 km).