Artemis II Reaches Lunar Space

The Orion spacecraft Integrity entered the moon’s gravitational pull just over four days and six hours into its 10-day mission.

Orion snapped this high-resolution selfie in space with a camera mounted on one of its solar array wings during a routine external inspection of the spacecraft on the second day into the Artemis II mission. The image was downlinked by the Orion Artemis II Optical Communications System. Courtesy of NASA

HOUSTON—Artemis II arrived in lunar space shortly after midnight on April 6, marking the start of humanity’s first visit to another celestial body in this millennium.

NASA confirmed that the Orion spacecraft, named Integrity, carried NASA astronauts Reid Wiseman, Victor Glover, and Christina Koch, and Canadian Space Agency astronaut Jeremy Hansen across the seminal threshold, where lunar gravity takes control of the ship, around 12:37 a.m. ET.