Project
NASA's deep-space crew capsule, built with Lockheed Martin, designed to carry astronauts to the Moon under the Artemis program.
NASA reports Orion's Artemis II heat shield had nine spots of char loss, down from 103 on Artemis I, after a change to the reentry trajectory. The comparison rests on two flights and NASA's own review.
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NASA released a preliminary Artemis II lunar science report built from the four-person crew's photos, spoken notes and drawings. Researchers can now test whether those observations hold science that instruments alone would have missed.
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NASA has posted about 800GB of Artemis II mission data, including more than 11,000 photos and videos and 8.5 hours of audio. Anyone can download it, though the raw archive is organized for researchers and a curated science page is the version built for everyone else.
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NASA has released the full Artemis II lunar science dataset, including five faint impact flashes the crew marked by hand on a tablet image. Scientists outside the mission can now examine those sightings, though without a stated watch time they cannot yet give an impact rate.
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Five impact flashes Artemis II astronauts saw on the farside led NASA to estimate a one-in-10,000-per-decade chance of a similar strike on a Moon base. The crew counted them by eye and with handheld cameras on a flight carrying minimal science payloads, and the count gives planners of the south-pole base a background rate to design against.
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NASA and Berkeley Lab researchers imaged heat-shield materials in 3D as they broke down at up to 900 degrees Celsius, using X-rays and a neural network. Engineers now have a record of how ablation starts, though their design simulations have yet to use it.
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Azora says its portable optical ground receiver latched onto Artemis II's Orion capsule at 240,000 miles, working from a California parking lot. The result shows a drivable terminal can pick up a signal at lunar range, though buyers will want its data rate and price before signing up for a pilot.
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Artemis II commander Reid Wiseman and pilot Victor Glover moved to emeritus advisory roles at NASA to help teams prepare Artemis III for 2027. Their Orion experience will now reach that Earth-orbit docking test through volunteer mentoring.
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The Artemis II crew flew 252,756 miles from Earth, farther than anyone before them. The medals presented in Houston close the mission out institutionally, while its successor is scheduled to stay in low Earth orbit.
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Engineers have published spacing and holding strategies for spacecraft waiting their turn at lunar Gateway, well ahead of the landers and cargo craft that will have to fly them.
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