It’s official: the Artemis II crew has reached the moon’s neighborhood. At about 12:41 a.m. ET Monday, the Orion capsule crossed into the lunar sphere of influence, the mathematical region where the moon’s gravity exceeds Earth’s, NASA flight director Rick Henfling said, calling it “a significant milestone on our mission.”
The boundary isn’t physical but marks that the spacecraft is now under the moon’s dominant gravitational effect. It’s the first time astronauts have entered that region since Apollo 17 in 1972. The crew sent back a photo captioned “one last look at Earth before we reach the Moon,” showing Earth as a distant crescent framed by Orion’s window.
Artemis II’s crew—NASA astronauts Reid Wiseman, Christina Koch and Victor Glover, and Canadian astronaut Jeremy Hansen—began Sunday with a wake-up message from Apollo 16 astronaut Charlie Duke, who noted the historical link between the original Orion lunar module and NASA’s modern Orion spacecraft.
The astronauts tested newly designed suits Sunday. The orange suits are worn at launch and re-entry and can supply a breathable atmosphere for up to six days in the event Orion loses pressurization, according to NASA. Orion also executed a 14-second engine burn Sunday to keep on the planned trajectory; earlier planned correction burns hadn’t been needed because Orion had been on a near-pinpoint course, Henfling said.
Later Monday the crew will perform a lunar flyby, reaching an estimated 252,760 miles from Earth—farthest any humans have traveled and surpassing the Apollo 13 record of 248,655 miles. During the flyby they will make roughly seven hours of observations beginning at 2:45 p.m. ET, including views of lunar terrain never seen directly by human eyes. NASA will provide live coverage starting at 1 p.m. ET. At closest approach—around 7 p.m. ET—the spacecraft is expected to be about 4,070 miles from the moon’s surface.
The crew will photograph the moon with two Nikon D5s and a Nikon Z9 and pursue about 30 science targets. Key targets include the Orientale basin, a nearly 600-mile-wide, 3.8-billion-year-old impact basin with preserved geological features spanning the near and far sides, and the Hertzsprung basin on the far side, a roughly 400-mile-wide feature that has been more degraded by subsequent impacts. Observing both will help compare how lunar topography evolves over time. A software tool will guide the crew’s observations.
Kelsey Young, Artemis II lunar science lead, said the schedule is “jam-packed” but flexible: the astronauts are “the field scientists” and are encouraged to deviate from the plan if what they see compels them.
Near the end of the observation window the crew will experience an approximately hourlong solar eclipse from Orion’s vantage. The sun will begin to be obscured at about 8:35 p.m. ET, darkening the moon as seen from the spacecraft and allowing observations of the sun’s corona and searches for flashes from impacts on the lunar surface. The eclipse also offers chances to image planets that may be visible—Mercury, Venus, Mars and Saturn. Young emphasized that as the first humans to see the moon from these vantage points on this mission, the crew has a unique opportunity for discovery and nuanced observations that complement orbital data.
