A crescent Earth as seen from the Artemis II Orion Integrity spacecraft, now over 46,000 km away.

[akasci@fosstodon.org]

Check out this dashboard for real-time status and telemetry from Artemis II.

Artemis II Tracker — Live Mission Control

Real-time mission control dashboard tracking NASA's Artemis II crewed lunar flyby. Live telemetry, DSN comms, orbit visualization, and crew activities.

Canadian Space (artemis.cdnspace.ca)

h/t @cdnspace
https://fosstodon.org/@cdnspace@mstdn.ca/116336006900298832
27/n

[zenheathen@beige.party]

@AkaSci @cdnspace This is the best tracker site for the mission I've seen anywhere. Good job, CSA!

[michaelgemar@cosocial.ca]

@AkaSci I don’t understand how NASA can spend billions on their flagship mission and not have better camera feeds. Why not put a Starlink on Orion? This is their biggest PR event, and we were stuck mainly with renders during launch.

[akasci@fosstodon.org]

@michaelgemar
Starlink? Starlink satellites look down at earth, not up or sideways at other spacecraft.

Currently, Orion is at ~70,000 km altitude.

NASA has continuous telemetry and video from Artemis II using DSN; they just aren't webcasting it, as one would expect.

Deep Space Network Now

The real time status of communications with our deep space explorers

Deep Space Network Now (eyes.nasa.gov)

[michaelgemar@cosocial.ca]

@AkaSci Fair point. They would have certainly helped at launch, but aren’t much use now.

[akasci@fosstodon.org]

@michaelgemar
Artemis II is also carrying an Optical Communication System, which will use lasers to communicate with earth, at very high data rates.

I have not read much about, yet. That should bring us some high-res video from the vicinity of the moon.

Exploration and Space Communications: LEMNOS - NASA

NASA (www.nasa.gov)

[oldfartrant@mstdn.ca]

@AkaSci somehow Trump didn't manage to get his name on it.

[akasci@fosstodon.org]

Cubesats deployed by Artemis II in High Earth Orbit:

TACHELES, German Space Agency: Effects of space env on electrical components.

K-RadCube, Korea AeroSpace Admin: Space radiation and its biological effects

Space Weather CubeSat-1, Saudi Space Agency: Space weather at a range of distances from Earth

ATENEA, Argentina's Space Agency; Assess radiation shielding methods, measure Earth's radiation spectrum, collect GPS data and validate a long-range comm link

https://digitalcommons.usu.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=6197&context=smallsat
28/n

[akasci@fosstodon.org]

Artemis II Trans Lunar Injection (TLI) burn coming up at 7:49 p.m. EDT.

The 349-second burn will increase Integrity's speed of ~11,000 m/s by 388 m/s and stretch the current 191x70,133 km elliptical orbit to go ~10,427 km beyond the moon and return back to earth.

A few minor burns will be made during the trip to fine-tune the trajectory.

The graphic below shows the approx. location of Integrity and the moon - now, during TLI and around April 6-8.

Go #Artemis2!

https://www.nasa.gov/blogs/missions/2026/04/02/artemis-ii-flight-day-2-crew-houston-poll-go-for-translunar-injection-burn/
29/n

[akasci@fosstodon.org]

One might consider it foolhardy for Artemis II Orion to come screaming down at 11 km/s to 191 km altitude, cross the paths of the LEO constellations and debris around 500 km, perform the TLI to adjust its speed and trajectory and race away, without colliding with anything.

But we can be assured that all that is taken care of and LEO satellites will maneuver to get out of the way as needed.

https://satellitetracker3d.com/track?norad-id=27426
30/n

[akasci@fosstodon.org]

Artemis II TLI complete. All systems good.

Here is a view of Earth from the spacecraft at altitude ~200 km during the TLI.

Integrity and the 4 astronauts are now headed for the moon.

Current orbit is 202x501,181 km, but the actual values will be slightly smaller due to gravitational interaction with the moon.

31/n

[f4grx@chaos.social]

@AkaSci holy crap

[akasci@fosstodon.org]

It's lonely out there

Artemis II Orion is now 33,668 km away, traveling at 15,347 km/h, approaching geo-sync orbit, as Earth gets smaller and smaller in the dark distance.

Astronauts have plenty of work and activities to keep them busy during the mission.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6RwfNBtepa4
32/n

[tinydoctor@mstdn.social]

@AkaSci I was ten years old when Apollo 8 orbited the Moon in 1968. 58 years ago. I watched every bit of it I could, all in memory at least narrated by Walter Cronkite. I didn't expect to get emotional about Artemis; at this point I don't think human space exploration is a...priority, as we humans in the interval between have done our best to be a pestilence all across the face of the Earth, but as I read that Artemis with 4 astronauts is headed to the moon, tears come to my eyes.

[akasci@fosstodon.org]

Artemis II astronauts are preparing to do a public event in the next few minutes where they will speak directly with media.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m3kR2KK8TEs
33/n

[cosmos4u@scicomm.xyz]

@AkaSci Given how big a crescent the Earth was yesterday from twice the distance I reckon that the small bright thing is rather the (full) Moon they're heading for.

[akasci@fosstodon.org]

Immersive 360° view video of the launch of the Artemis II mission.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9LFBFRH51Jo
34/n

[akasci@fosstodon.org]

@cosmos4u
Thanks for the heads up and your sharp mind.

[daniel_pagenstecher@mastodon.social]

@AkaSci TBH I don't like this kind of visualization because it suggests that the debris has the size of a city like Rio de Janeiro... AFAIK the majority is extremely small or small (nonetheless it is still dangerous because of it's kinetic energy). But such a visualization is IMHO a bit misleading.

[wcbdata@vis.social]

@AkaSci I didn't think anyone was creating diagrams like this any more... What a beautiful thing!