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The spacecraft's current orbit around the moon, called "distant retrograde orbit," put Orion in position to view Earth and its satellite from a rare vantage point. In this orbit, the spacecraft is flying some 40,000 miles above the lunar surface, enabling it to at times "look back" at our natural satellite and beyond. Orion is actually beaming back a livestream of the Artemis I mission, which you can watch on this link from NASA. (At times, however, the moon moves between Earth and the spacecraft, which temporarily cuts off your cosmic livestreaming service.)

NASA’s Orion capsule snaps a selfie, with the far side of the Moon in the background. Image: NASA NASA’s Orion spacecraft has made it past the Moon as part of the uncrewed Artemis I mission, firing its engines to pass within 81 miles of the lunar surface, and is operating with high accuracy. The spacecraft performed an outbound powered flyby burn yesterday, Monday, November 21st, completing its closest flyby. The engines “all worked perfectly,” said Judd Frieling, a flight director at NASA’s Johnson Space Center, in a press conference. With three trajectory correction burns performed, the spacecraft has now fired...

Mission UpdatesFeed Upper Stage Liquid Hydrogen and Liquid Oxygen in Fast Fill Teams are in fast fill operations for the interim cryogenic propulsion stage’s (ICPS) liquid hydrogen and liquid oxygen tanks. The ICPS is the upper stage of the Space Launch System rocket responsible for giving the Orion spacecraft the big push it needs in space to head toward the Moon. Teams continue to work toward a … 44 minutes ago

The space agency is still targeting a two-hour launch window on Wednesday, November 16, that begins at 1:04 a.m. ET for liftoff of Artemis I. It will mark the inaugural flight of the new Space Launch System rocket and send an uncrewed Orion spacecraft on a test flight around the moon. The space agency had decided to roll out the SLS rocket to the launchpad November 4 while the storm was still an unnamed system brewing off the East Coast. Nicole left some substantial issues to be addressed, Free said. Some caulking came loose on the Orion spacecraft that ground...

The third attempt at a final prelaunch test for NASA's Artemis I mega moon rocket began Thursday morning, but the trial hit some snags and ended prematurely at 5:10 p.m. ET. The agency will host a news conference on Friday to share updates and next steps for the test. The mission team had been attempting to fuel the 322-foot-tall (98-meter-tall) Artemis I rocket stack, including NASA's Space Launch System and Orion spacecraft, at Kennedy Space Center in Florida, but encountered a number of delays.