Artemis is over half way to the moon. This post continues from the first published yesterday (3/4/26).
Yesterday it was mentioned re the various flares etc seen during the flight. Here’s a couple of screenshots of those.
One of sixteen screencaps taken of those flares.
And another…
One matter of note is the Artemis crew are scheduled for nine hours of sleep quite soon, thus there will be little activity for much of the day – apart from things MCC will need to undertake, or even any emergencies that could arise. So far the crew have had sleep periods of just four hours, thus this longer period will be a welcome rest period before Integrity begins to near the moon.
Evidently we’ll know when that phase does sort of begin when the craft’s speed does increase marginally. Currently its doing just under 3,000 miles per hour (its 2,754 to be exact – this being at 09.15 UK time).
There’s been ongoing discussions between CapCom (Capsule Communication) at MCC and Infinity re the toilet waste management system. There had been issues with the toilet during the first day of the mission – and now its waste management problems.
Here’s a transcript of the most recent announcement (approx 09.30am UK time) which highlighted issues with the waste system. As is evident the crew are required to use collapsible urinals whilst the issue is sorted. It seems the toilet system is actually quite useable but only for that other function – this being number two. I think the whole issue began late yesterday when one of the crew found the waste system wasn’t functioning as expected. In the quote below ‘MCC’ is where they actually used the full name.
This is MCC we just heard some communication between the crew on board the Orion spacecraft and the CapCom (or Capsule Communicator) here in MCC. They were discussing a recent wastewater dump. The space toilet on board the Orion spacecraft is called the Universal Waste Management System, and as part of this system, the urine is stored in a tank and then vented overboard each day by the crew. A few minutes ago, the crew was completing that overboard venting or that wastewater dump, and it does sound like there was a bit of an issue there. So that’s being troubleshot. But in the meantime, the crew will enter into their sleep period and use the contingency collapse urinals as needed overnight while they continue to troubleshoot the wastewater dump. And currently here in MCC the two flight controllers are starting to wrap up their shift. So the orbit team of three flight controllers is starting to come on console and complete that handover period. The orbit two team has been led by NASA Flight Director Paul Konya, and… CapCom… has been Jackie Mahaffey. Currently the Orion spacecraft is about 148,000 miles away from the earth, and about 126,000 miles away from the moon.
This is getting toward the end of Day three for MCC and the crew. When the crew wake up they will be in Day Four of the mission.
Was looking through Ebay stuff for images that might do for those ‘lost’ posts I wrote on Apollo and found this picture of one of the cameras used on the Apollo 11 voyage. Have not seen these ‘cards’ before – nevertheless its of interest, though not for my posts. I’ve seen discussion from those such as Dave McKeegan who have argued that the Apollo missions couldn’t have been faked even though the cameras apparently did not record what they were supposed to. He has also put forward many other arguments as to why any fakery of the moon landings simply cannot be possible. As Keegan clearly put it in his video, the cameras worked perfectly and there’s some excellent shots and detailed analysis as shown below.
The National Air and Space Museum has some photographic examples of the Hasselblads used for the Apollo missions.
Here’s some more to do with cameras! Gosh those cards can fly! Was either a CompactFlash or an XQD card which attempted an escape orbit!
Slowly getting bigger. The moon is currently around 112,000 miles distant (16.55pm UK time).
The waste dump saga continues. MCC were saying the Integrity toilet is currently for feces only. The wastewater dumping problems they thought was due to ice on the primary vent nozzle. They said it would be great to have space plumbers to unclog it and despite their crew being skilled in everything this sort of instance was one job they could not do. The craft had to be repositioned so that the problematic area would at least get some heat from the sun in order to help drain the waste system properly. This appears to be ongoing until the issue can be sorted completely.
Houston, we have a toilet problem. CNN write up about the toilet problems aboard Orion.
The original posts made for Apollo 11’s 50th anniversary in 2019 have had some work done to them. One of the tasks was to change the header image created in 2019. It was wrong for what is currently needed. The original image files were fortunately found, and have been altered to represent the blog’s current 16×9 format.
The original header picture as seen for the 2019 posts. This can still be seen on The Moon 1969 which WAS published in 2019.
This is the new look header image for 2026 so far. This is for the missing posts that have been found. Some repositioning has been done and also the Apollo eagle symbol was replaced with the moon. The smaller moon will probably get replaced with some other image, possibly the Eagle badge in order to balance the NASA logo on the opposite side.
Currently Artemis 2 is nearing the 100,000 distance marker from the moon (21.30pm UK time). The very commencement of the phase when the craft starts to get properly drawn into the moon’s gravitational area will commence during Sunday evening UK time I think. However the main lunar flyby will take place throughout Easter Monday 6th April 2026 – that will no doubt be the highlight of the entire mission.
Just now (21.35pm) one of the crew was asking for a private discussion with MCC, and MCC replied they would set that up. Wiseman was the one who requested this. MCC were explaining all the communications were public. However it was not unusual for requests for privacy to be made when speaking to the flight director or flight controller for example.
Some problems arose with this attempt – there was some technical issues – they had to make sure both MCC and Orion could hear each other and it seems its all okay now.
The crew set up the cabin for a news conference. Victor can be seen taking pictures of Reid and/or Jeremy prior to the event. (21.55pm UK time approx).
Hi-res image of Orion shown at the latest NASA update conference. This was taken by the external cameras. Obviously what we see live is merely a low resolution picture stream off those cameras.
Photo shown at NASA’s update showing the Orion cabin in subdued light. Its so the crew can look out of the window to observe the spheres & stars.
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