Overview
- NASA released a large set of photos Tuesday showing the Moon’s far side, the Mare Orientale basin, and eerie Earth eclipses seen from behind the Moon.
- Orion swung behind the Moon overnight Monday to Tuesday and lost contact for about 40 minutes, after which the crew described the view as they regained the link with Mission Control.
- The flight set a human distance mark at 406,773 kilometers from Earth and came to about 6,545 kilometers from the lunar surface during the flyby.
- NASA is using Artemis II to prove deep‑space operations such as navigation without real‑time Earth support and to study how people and hardware handle radiation and cold in transit.
- The crew is on a return course for a Saturday, April 11, splashdown in the Pacific, marking the first crewed outing beyond low Earth orbit since Apollo and the first crewed flight of SLS and Orion.