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Earthset From the Lunar Far Side

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Earthset From the Lunar Far Side

 
Alt text: The gray-brown, heavily cratered Moon dominates the frame against black space, with a partially lit crescent Earth setting behind its upper-left edge.
April 6, 2026

NASA’s Artemis II mission will conclude its 10-day journey around the Moon on April 10, 2026, when the crew splashes down off the California coast. While additional imagery will continue to be processed after their return, the astronauts have already delivered a remarkable collection of photos. Among them is a shot of Earthset, echoing the iconic Earthrise photos taken by Apollo 8 astronauts in 1968.

During an Earthset, the planet appears to sink below the lunar horizon. In this scene, a partially lit crescent Earth drops behind the Moon as seen by crew on the Orion spacecraft. The Earth’s sunlit side shows white clouds and blue water over the Oceania region, while the dark areas are experiencing nighttime. The image also shows incredible detail of the Moon’s surface and its overlapping craters and basins.

The image was taken at 6:41 p.m. Eastern Daylight Time on April 6, 2026, as the Artemis II astronauts passed behind the Moon’s far side. It is one of many photos taken during the seven-hour flyby, including images of a total solar eclipse, the light from several planetary neighbors, and the long shadows cast along the terminator line where lunar day meets night.

More images from the historic flyby can be viewed in the Artemis II lunar flyby gallery, and other mission photos and resources are available on the mission’s multimedia page. Past views of Earth from afar can be found in this collection from NASA Earth Observatory.

Image by NASA. Text by Kathryn Hansen, adapted from NASA resources.

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Alt text: The gray-brown, heavily cratered Moon dominates the frame against black space, with a partially lit crescent Earth setting behind its upper-left edge.

April 6, 2026

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Busy Day of Space Science and Lab Maintenance Greets Station Crew

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Busy Day of Space Science and Lab Maintenance Greets Station Crew

Expedition 74 flight engineers (from left) Chris Williams of NASA, Sophie Adenot of ESA (European Space Agency), and Jessica Meir of NASA pose for a portrait aboard the International Space Station. Meir is wearing a portable breathing apparatus to test its readiness for unlikely emergency scenarios such as an oxygen leak, chemical leak, or fire aboard the orbital outpost.
Astronauts (from left) Chris Williams, Sophie Adenot, and Jessica Meir, who is wearing a portable breathing apparatus for testing purposes, pose for a portrait aboard the International Space Station.
ESA/Sophie Adenot

A packed schedule filled with numerous science objectives and critical lab maintenance tasks greeted the Expedition 74 crew aboard the International Space Station on Thursday. Meanwhile, the orbital residents await the next U.S. cargo mission.

A wide array of research is always ongoing aboard the orbital lab as NASA and its international partners use the unique microgravity environment to gain results unobtainable on Earth. Insights reveal new phenomena that inform scientists and engineers of ways to advance human health and innovate Earth and space industries.

Over 25 years of medical knowledge gained from crews living on the space station has shown that living and working in weightless in the confines of a spacecraft impacts stress and immunity levels. A new investigation sponsored by ESA (European Space Agency) is exploring mindfulness and meditation techniques to manage stress and improve sleep quality during a long-term spaceflight. NASA flight engineer Jessica Meir documented her sleep patterns then collected and stowed her saliva samples for the RelaxPro study. Scientists will analyze the saliva samples to measure how microgravity affects an astronaut’s stress hormones and immune markers.

NASA flight engineer Chris Williams spent most of his day on standard housekeeping and maintenance duties. Williams first stowed spacesuit helmet components inside the Quest airlock. Next, he entered his nutritional and pharmaceutical intake on the EveryWear health data collection app. Finally, Williams stocked and reorganized food packs inside the Unity module making space for new crew supplies being delivered on the upcoming Cygnus XL mission.

NASA flight engineer Jack Hathaway kicked off his shift reviewing safety procedures when connecting electronics gear inside the orbiting lab. Next, Hathaway inventoried biomedical research hardware in the Columbus and Destiny laboratory modules. At the end of his day, he set up a camera inside the Unity’s Earth-facing port where mission controllers tested its downlink video they will use to monitor the arrival of Cygnus XL.

Mission managers continue targeting no earlier than 7:41 a.m. EDT Saturday, April 11, for the launch of Northrop Grumman’s Cygnus XL cargo spacecraft to resupply the Expedition 74 crew. Watch the agency’s launch and arrival coverage on NASA+, Amazon Prime, and the agency’s YouTube channel. Learn how to watch NASA content through a variety of platforms, including social media.

The small TUSK experimental robotic arm was configured inside the Kibo laboratory module for a technology demonstration by flight engineer Sophie Adenot of ESA (European Space Agency) at the beginning of her shift. TUSK seeks to save crew time and test the robotic arm’s precise, sub-millimeter motion in weightlessness. Adenot wrapped up her shift familiarizing herself with spacewalking hardware then videotaping how to measure the human body’s height, arm length, and leg length as they expand due to the lack of gravity.

The orbital outpost’s three cosmonauts focused on their list of research and lab upkeep throughout the International Space Station’s Roscosmos segment on Thursday. Station commander Sergey Kud-Sverchkov and flight engineer Sergei Mikaev took turns filling out a questionnaire to help researchers understand a crew member’s decision‑making styles, stress responses, interpersonal approaches, and preferred working patterns. The duo then split up conducting life support maintenance and cargo transfers. Flight engineer Andrey Fedyaev spent his shift on European robotic arm maintenance inside the Nauka science module.

Learn more about station activities by following the space station blog, @space_station on X, as well as the ISS Facebook and ISS Instagram accounts.

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Mark A. Garcia

Indoor Testing Facilities available at the NASA Unmanned Autonomy Research Complex (NUARC)

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Indoor Testing Facilities available at the NASA Unmanned Autonomy Research Complex (NUARC)

WindShaper

A large WindShaper fan array is available for dynamic low-speed and hovering flight research.  The WindShaper is ideal for generating arbitrary wind gradients and wind gusts via a simple Python API.  A companion WindProbe is also available for quick surveys of flows.  The WindProbe utilizes the lab’s OptiTrack motion capture system to extract the position and orientation of the 5-hole cone probe located on the probe tip.

Windshaper fan array for dynamic low-speed and hovering flight research.
Windshaper fan array for dynamic low-speed and hovering flight research at NASA Ames Research Center.
NASA/John Melton

•Large dynamic fan array: 9’x7’, 1134 fans arranged as 567 ‘wind pixels’

•Wind speeds: 0 to 16 m/s (0 to 36 mph/31 kts)

•Acceleration: 4 m/s2, Deceleration: 2.5 m/s2

•Each fan is programmable via Python scripting

•Replicates steady winds, gusts, and wind gradients

WindProbe for handheld mobile wind data collection.
WindProbe for handheld mobile wind data collection.
WindShaper

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Suzanne Cisneros

Starstruck

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Starstruck

The Milky Way galaxy appears as many points of light dotting the blackness of space.
A stunning snapshot in time. The Artemis II crew captured this breathtaking photo of our galaxy, the Milky Way.
NASA

The Artemis II crew captured this photo of our galaxy, the Milky Way, on April 7, 2026. The Milky Way’s elegant spiral structure is dominated by just two arms wrapping off the ends of a central bar of stars. Spanning more than 100,000 light-years, Earth is located along one of the galaxy’s spiral arms, about halfway from the center.

See more photos from the mission.
Image credit: NASA

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Monika Luabeya

Watching the Artemis II Mission Unfold at JPL’s Space Flight Operations Facility

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Watching the Artemis II Mission Unfold at JPL’s Space Flight Operations Facility

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Watching the Artemis II Mission Unfold at JPL’s Space Flight Operations Facility

Staff at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California watch the agency’s Artemis II mission unfold soon after launch on April 1, 2026, at the Space Flight Operations Facility, which operates the Deep Space Network (DSN).
PIA26747
Credits:
NASA/JPL-Caltech

 

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Watching the Artemis II Mission Unfold at JPL’s Space Flight Operations Facility

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Staff at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California watch the agency’s Artemis II mission unfold soon after launch on April 1, 2026, at the Space Flight Operations Facility, which operates the Deep Space Network (DSN).

The DSN comprises of three complexes in Goldstone, California; Madrid, Spain; and Canberra, Australia. Each complex has several radio frequency antennas that communicate with dozens of spacecraft exploring the solar system in addition to the crewed Artemis II mission.

The DSN is managed by JPL for the agency’s Space Communications and Navigation program, which is located at NASA Headquarters within the Space Operations Mission Directorate. The DSN allows missions to track, send commands to, and receive scientific data from faraway spacecraft. JPL is managed by Caltech in Pasadena, California, for NASA.

For more information about Artemis II, visit: https://www.nasa.gov/mission/artemis-ii/

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