Ongoing updates on the first ever moon shot the world has seen in more than fifty years that has conveyed humans. The Artemis two project’s Orion spacecraft is on its way to the Moon. Currently at the time of writing the craft is 72,000 miles from Earth. This post is intended as a brief summary hence nothing too detailed.

Despite a number of problems including just before the TLI where emergency alerts came up regarding the cabin pressure. This indicated a leak of some sort, and even though the go ahead for the lunar phase of the project had been given some hours earlier, it did look as if it could be aborted. Thankfully the problem was due to calibration thus it solved. NASA gave a full presentation of what had happened (as well as updates to the mission) almost immediately following the TLI.

These are the screencaps taken of the mission. So far it’s been difficult to see proper views because the on board camera next to the solar array has posed many problems in transmission. After the TLI pictures came up for about a second or so then vanished for the next few minutes and this was a pattern repeated throughout.

One of the best shots, involving the separation of the Orion module form the main rocket.

One of the other best shots so far. This is Orion’s thrusters with the Earth visible. Approximately 11.12am BST on 2nd April.

Earth seen from Orion as it zoomed close by during the TLI – the slingshot that took the craft towards the moon. Earth was at this point around 700 miles below. The live pictures suffered badly and kept cutting out (no doubt due to the very close range – as little as 153 miles and the craft’s exponential speed increase – by then somewhere around 24,000mph).

View of Mission Control Centre (MCC) just after the five minute long TLI had been employed and hailed as a complete success.

One of the images from Orion, subsequently shown at the NASA presentation held around 1.00am UK time 3rd April 2026.

Orion with Earth 72,000 miles away. This was a much earlier shot compared to those below.

The camera has just been shifted to show the Orion capsule at around 14.10pm UK time. That after a few hours showing just part of the rear boosters.

Seems they’re rotating the camera yet again ATM! It now shows a somewhat different view of the boosters, but the solar panels are also shown better too. At the current time Orion is about 89477 miles from Earth. Distance to the moon is around 172659 miles.

Detail from NSA Spaceflight’s channel showing the status just after the moment the camera was rotated.

The cameras were rotated around quite a few times within this last two hours or so. MCC said this was activity that was undertaken to inspect the craft and ensure it had received no damage of any sort whilst taking off and also travelling. They say another similar inspection will take place on the return trip.

Orion (at the time of posting this image eg 16.35pm UK time on 3rd April) is 98961 miles from Earth.

The cameras have just been turned to show the main Orion (aka Integrity) capsule. I lightened up the transmitted image to see how the craft actually looked. But there’s a better picture now coming on the screen and there’s no need to lighten that one!

This was taken a few moments later when the cameras rotated some more. Or perhaps its the craft turning slightly as its thrusters were probably doing some minor shifts – MCC said we would see these at work. There were a few flashes sometime earlier which indicate the thrusters were firing. The transmitted images didn’t last long for the Orion capsule was soon in total darkness again.

This is going back sometime maybe half an hour or so before the above pictures were taken. A stream emanating from the thrusters can be seen at the bottom. Another occurred towards the top a moment or two later.

Just now (18.20pm UK time) MCC had a running commentary which included some high resolution shots looking back at the Earth – one of which is shown below (as well as waking up the astronauts etc) and what they will be doing for this second day of space travel, including exercises, interviews, tests etc.

One of the high res images shown of Earth as Orion flew away after its TLI.

A quick screenshot of the most recent live transmission (approx19.40pm UK time) of the crew just after they had woke up. I missed Christina as she went to the side.

One just now (19.50pm) including Christina Koch. The others are (LR) Victor Glover, Jeremy Hansen and Reid Wiseman.

Here’s part of an interview conducted early this morning (UK time) with the crew shown below.

“I’m the space plumber, I’m proud to call myself the space plumber.”

Mission specialists like @Astro_Christina train for all roles so they can jump in wherever they’re needed. Sometimes that means fixing vital machinery, like the spacecraft toilet. pic.twitter.com/RGBWkwRgX7

— NASA (@NASA) April 3, 2026

The full interview can be seen on Youtube.

Another NASA update (20.25pm onward UK time) is underway with leading staff explaining various things. These include Lakisha Hawkins and Judd Frieling. Its been said the mission is going very well basically no problems at all, performing as things ought to or even better than expected. More pictures were shown and here’s two of those below.

The Earth backlit whilst eclipsing with the Sun. Two auroras can be seen one top and the other bottom left. Taken by Wiseman.

One of NASA’s staff on the panel Howard Hughes – Orion Programme Manager – had said this was his favourite shot. Its by Reid Wiseman.

Around 10pm there was a series of camera rotations which caused enormous lighting spikes and flares because the Sun was getting into the picture. Some very weird effects. Quite a number of screencaps were taken but not decided yet which to show.

Hansen tries to catch a sweet in his mouth but misses! Glover is on the exercise machine. Approx 23.05pm UK time on 3rd April 2026.

The telemetry being seen during this period. Distance from Earth 118,264 miles. Distance to Moon 149,054 miles. Velocity has dropped well below 4,000mph.

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Feature image created by the author, sourced from current NASA 2026 publicity and also from actual 1969 publicity (the moon is the element from that).