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.
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
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.
A graphical representation of the Deep Space Network’s radio frequency antennas indicate signal acquisition from NASA’s Artemis II mission to the Moon on April 1, 2026, inside the Space Flight Operations Facility at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California. Two antennas at the Madrid Deep Space Communications Complex, Deep Space Station 54 and 56, can be seen communicating with Artemis II (the signals are labelled “EM2”, short for “Exploration Mission 2”; elsewhere they are labelled “ART2” for “Artemis II”).
A similar visualization can be found at DSN Now, which details all the missions that the network is communicating with 24 hours a day, seven days a week.
The Space Flight Operations Facility operates the DSN, which comprises of three complexes in Goldstone, California; Madrid, Spain; and Canberra, Australia. Each complex consists of several radio frequency antennas that communicate with dozens of spacecraft exploring the solar system in addition to the 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.
The acquisition of the radio frequency signal from the Artemis II crewed mission to the Moon by NASA’s Deep Space Network (DSN) is indicated by the peak in the data signal shown on the top computer screen.
Soon after the mission’s launch on April 1, 2026, at 6:35 p.m. EDT, NASA’s Near Space Network led communications with the Orion capsule. Then, communications were handed off to the DSN, marking the first time in over 50 years that the network would be communicating with a crewed spacecraft traveling through deep space.
The Space Flight Operations Facility at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California (where this photo was taken) operates the DSN, which comprises three complexes in Goldstone, California; Madrid, Spain; and Canberra, Australia. Each complex consists of several radio frequency antennas that communicate with dozens of robotic spacecraft exploring the solar system in addition to the 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.
Watching Over the Deep Space Network Before Artemis II Signal Acquisition
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Watching Over the Deep Space Network Before Artemis II Signal Acquisition
PIA26744
Credits: NASA/JPL-Caltech
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Watching Over the Deep Space Network Before Artemis II Signal Acquisition
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Blanca Renteria, Artemis Deep Space Network (DSN) operations chief, monitors data at the Space Flight Operations Facility at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California shortly after Artemis II launched from the agency’s Kennedy Space Flight Center in Florida on April 1, 2026, at 6:35 p.m. EDT.
The Space Flight Operations Facility operates the DSN, which comprises three complexes in Goldstone, California; Madrid, Spain; and Canberra, Australia. Each complex consists of several radio frequency antennas that communicate with dozens of robotic 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.
