While the Artemis II crew are experiencing their own personal solar eclipse, Mission Control will temporarily lose communications with the capsule. This is planned and expected. We anticipate regaining communications in about 30 minutes.

Clocking in ⏱️ Moon joy is in full swing as the Artemis II crew begins seven hours of lunar observation. Crewmembers will photograph both the near and far sides of the Moon and describe what they see. Watch live:

To commemorate the Artemis II mission, the astronauts announced their suggestion to rename certain features on the Moon to honor the Orion spacecraft, named Integrity, as well as commander Reid Wiseman's late wife, Carroll.

A new milestone for humankind: The crew of Artemis II are now the farthest any human has ever travelled, reaching a maximum distance of 252,752 miles from Earth. This surpasses the previous record set by Apollo 13 in 1970 by about 4,102 miles.

LIVE: Watch with us as the Artemis II astronauts make their closest approach to the Moon, traveling farther from Earth than ever before.

Update: We'll be extending our livestream coverage tonight to have a little more time with the Artemis II crew.

During today's lunar flyby, Mission Control regained communications with Artemis II after a planned communications blackout as the Orion capsule traveled on the far side of the Moon.

🌞🌕🧑‍🚀 Right now, the Orion capsule is passing behind the Moon, so the Sun is entirely eclipsed from their perspective. During this time, they will view a mostly darkened Moon and will use the opportunity to analyze the solar corona.

Coming up next, our @NASAArtemis astronauts and @NASAAdmin answer questions from social media. Stay tuned:

@NASAArtemis Enjoy the view🌕

Probably the most stressful 30 minutes for the team.

Did you pose for the crescent Earth rise pic?

@NASAKennedy 30 minutes no signal… basically airplane mode on another level 😅✈️🌑

“In Humanity We Trust” Setting new heights everyday! BPNgMZmamJGSVGrrDEhKMAAJz1uMP3QG2VC9vKt7pump

@NASAArtemis Artemis II: that’s no moon. That’s a space st—actually no that is a moon

@NASAKennedy I am waiting for this

This is surprisingly not the first time or even the third time a crewed space mission is seeing a solar eclipse either. Apollo 11, Apollo 12 and Gemini 12 all saw one. By far Apollo 12 just took the most magnificent film of the eclipse.

@NASAArtemis I’m imagining Reid and Victor passive aggressively elbowing each other to get to the far side of Orion to be the “furthest”. Jeremy the Canadian would not be taking part, and Christina would look over and be like “wtf are you guys doing over there”

PERSONAL SOLAR ECLIPSE is wild!! #ArtemisII

A communications blackout and a solar eclipse at the same time—Artemis II is delivering some unforgettable moments🫠

The most stunning thing is how NASA took something that could capture the world and made it boring and absolutely unwatchable. Congrats as that was seemingly impossible to do.

What’s coming next when the communication comes back? Will the astronauts share with us what they saw on the ”dark side”? 😏 Lot of questions but.. when do we get some visual content from the other side? Thanks @NASA

This is just bad that we lose signal behind the moon. We could not have sent a few tethered radio signal satellites to help us keep in contact on the dark side.... Really? So ridiculous, we are so far behind where we should be tech wise!?

when we'll see the pictures that the crew was taking while flyby?

What previous Astronauts saw of the far side of the Moon before - today.

That must be a wild feeling being up there rn

@NASAArtemis I think I took a picture of them before entering.😄

@NASAKennedy It will not be a solar eclipse, but a terrestrial eclipse.

Great

Yeah i think you’ll get more from a time lapse… deja moon 🌝 🌚 @NASAArtemis … imaging how artists paint ..🖼 💭🙃🙂🙃🙂👋🤕🤣 … Miro vibes @POTUS @JDVance @PressSec … a few paracetamol and it’s life changer 🤦‍♂️🌎🇺🇸🙏🙏🙏💜💜💜🤣🤣🤣

To the Artemis II crew:Roger that. Current distance to Earth: 0.00137 parsecs Distance to Moon at closest approach (just happened): 0.000017 parsecs (4,070 miles)You’re basically doing interstellar travel at this point, you absolute legends.#MakeItParsecs #ArtemisII

Great coverage on NASA TV via CSpan. Is it possible and/or practical to put communication satellites in lunar orbit to help with this LOS?

Mission Control planned for 30 minutes of silence and still has to sit there watching a blank screen anyway 😭 All that education, all that training, all those PhDs in one room ...and all they can do right now is wait like the rest of us. Space humbles everybody equally. 💀🚀🌙

So why can’t you show any dang videos? Why is it always a AI interpretation?

No signal. No backup. Just the crew, the Moon and physics in control.

Tendran alguna imagen donde tambien se vea el sol deade su posición actual? Pregunto... Do you have any picture where the sun can also be seen from its current position? Just asking…

@NASAArtemis Bullshit. NASA wants to screen whatever is seen before releasing to the public, as always.

NASA Communications has been doing a standout job on the livestream keeping us up to speed on what's going on. I had to listen like it was a radio broadcast while at work and all the descriptions of what was going on really helped! 👍

Yeah But:

@NASAArtemis This is amazing 👏 well done