Artemis II: Day Six

Now 28 people have visited the Moon

Artemis II has now completed its flyby of the Moon and is heading home. The crew experienced a 40 minutes communications blackout as they passed behind the Moon, and witnessed the Earth set and rise.

The Earth about to set behind the Moon as seen from Artemis II. Credit: NASA

What they saw was not quite the same as what the crew of Apollo 8 saw - Integrity passed the Moon at a significantly higher altitude, and the Earth was in a different phase at the time. There was also not the tension in this blackout that there was the first time Apollo 8 passed behind the Moon, because on that mission they had to perform a rocket burn during the blackout to place themselves into a low Lunar orbit, and mission control had no way of knowing if it had succeeded until they reestablished contact.

I have some thoughts on the messages for Earth that the crew transmitted before and after blackout, but first I’ll drill down on some details about the flyby itself.