The historic Artemis II mission, which seeks the first return of humans to the Moon in more than fifty years, was this Saturday (04/04/2026) almost halfway along as it began its third day of its trajectory and when NASA did not have to perform a correction maneuver since it remains on the correct flight path.
The mission, which took off last Wednesday at 6:35 p.m. local time (22:35 GMT) from the Kennedy Space Center, is advancing at 5,632 kilometers per hour towards the Moon, where it hopes to arrive this Monday.
The European Space Agency captured the Orion spacecraft about 183,936 kilometers from Earth and about 244,298 kilometers from the Moon when the clock showed 01:00 CET on Saturday.
The crew — made up of Commander Reid Wiseman, and astronauts Victor Glover, Christina Koch and Jeremy Hansen — is expected to make history next Monday by reaching the far side of the Moon and traveling the furthest distance ever traveled from Earth: 406,773 kilometers (252,757 miles).
This distance is farther than the 400,171 kilometers (248,655 miles) reached by the Apollo 13 crew in 1970.
Crew transmits images of Earth
NASA published the first images transmitted by the crew on Friday, a day and a half after the start of the first manned mission to the Moon in more than half a century.
The first photo, taken by Commander Wiseman, shows a curved section of the Earth in one of the capsule’s windows. The second shows the entire globe with the oceans covered by swirls of white clouds. You can even see a green northern lights, according to NASA.
“It’s wonderful to think that, with the exception of our four companions, we are all represented in this image,” said Lakiesha Hawkins, NASA exploration systems leader. He added that the mission is being carried out successfully.
The three Americans and the Canadian will orbit the Moon in their Orion capsule, turn around and return directly home non-stop. They fired Orion’s main engine on Thursday night, allowing them to begin their trajectory.
After Mission Control repositioned the capsule, the entire Earth, with the northern lights, filled its windows.
“It was the most spectacular moment, and it left all four of us speechless,” Wiseman said in a television interview.
Orion on correct flight path
After two days of travel, the mission has not recorded any major setbacks, even this Saturday the flight controllers at the Mission Control Center at NASA’s Johnson Space Center in Houston canceled the first trajectory correction maneuver, given that the capsule remains on the correct flight path.
The maneuver constituted the first of three trajectory adjustments planned in the mission schedule to fine-tune the speed and trajectory of the spacecraft, which is expected to arrive next Monday at the far side of the Moon to take images in preparation for a future lunar landing.
However, the US space agency said in a statement that any necessary adjustments can be incorporated into a subsequent correction maneuver.
Canadian astronaut Jeremy Hansen is expected to speak to reporters live from Orion at 1:10 a.m. ET (8:00 a.m. CET) this Saturday, according to the Canadian Space Agency.
NASA has set up a real-time tracker that shows the location of the Orion capsule so the public can follow the mission from home.
The tracker allows you to follow the trajectory of the mission, as well as record the speed of the capsule and the distance, in miles, that separates it from the Earth or the Moon.
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