Nearly five decades after the last Apollo lunar mission, humanity is once again on the cusp of a groundbreaking space milestone. Four astronauts traveling aboard NASA’s Orion capsule as part of the Artemis II mission have already captured never-before-seen views of the Moon’s surface, even before completing their highly anticipated close lunar flyby, the U.S. space agency confirmed Sunday.
By the end of their fourth day in orbit, the 10-day mission had passed its two-thirds completion mark. Per NASA’s real-time mission tracking dashboard, the crew was positioned roughly 200,000 miles from Earth and 82,000 miles from the Moon as they ended their workday Sunday. The handout image released by NASA, taken by a crew member earlier that day, reveals the massive Orientale Basin—nicknamed the Moon’s “Grand Canyon”—stretching across the distant lunar surface, a sight no human had ever witnessed directly before this mission.
“This mission marks the first time the entire basin has been seen with human eyes,” NASA stated in an official release. While orbiting robotic probes have previously photographed the bullseye-shaped impact crater, the crater formed by an ancient asteroid collision has only now been observed by human vision.
During a live public Q&A session with Canadian schoolchildren hosted by the Canadian Space Agency, mission specialist Christina Koch shared the crew’s excitement over the unprecedented view. “It’s very distinctive and no human eyes previously had seen this crater until today, really, when we were privileged enough to see it,” she said. Koch also added that the crew had already observed the Moon’s far side for the first time, describing the view as “absolutely spectacular.”
The mission’s next key milestone is scheduled for overnight Sunday into Monday, when Orion will enter the Moon’s sphere of influence—the point where lunar gravity exerts a stronger pull on the spacecraft than Earth’s gravity. If all systems operate as planned, the flyby that follows will make history: the four-person crew, made up of Americans Reid Wiseman, Victor Glover, and Christina Koch, alongside Canadian Jeremy Hansen, will travel farther from Earth than any human in history.
To prepare for the flyby, the crew has already completed a manual piloting test and a full review of their flight plan, which includes mapping and photographing key lunar surface features during their pass. The crew’s day-to-day operations have blended rigorous mission work with small, personal moments: the team began one recent day with a breakfast of scrambled eggs and coffee, woken by Chappell Roan’s hit pop song “Pink Pony Club,” and mission commander Wiseman noted that morale onboard remains high following a chance to video call his two daughters.
“We’re up here, we’re so far away, and for a moment, I was reunited with my little family,” Wiseman told a live press conference. “It was just the greatest moment of my entire life.” Wiseman called the entire mission a Herculean feat, one humanity has not attempted in more than 50 years.
Unlike the Apollo missions of the 1960s and 1970s, which orbited just 70 miles above the lunar surface, Artemis II will make its closest approach at roughly 4,000 miles from the Moon. This higher vantage point allows the crew to observe the entire circular face of the Moon, including polar regions never before seen by human observers. Crew members completed extensive geology training ahead of launch to help them identify and document key lunar features, from ancient lava flows to massive impact craters. The crew has even been permitted to use personal smartphones to capture imagery, a new policy approved by NASA for crewed spaceflights.
Before the release of the Orientale Basin image, NASA had already published a stunning full portrait of Earth captured from Orion, showing the planet’s deep blue oceans and swirling cloud formations against the black of deep space.
Artemis II serves as a critical crewed test flight for NASA’s broader Artemis program, which aims to establish a permanent sustainable outpost on the Moon as a stepping stone for future crewed missions to Mars. For the astronauts on board, however, the mission is also the fulfillment of decades-long dreams of space exploration, with crew member Jeremy Hansen describing the simple joy of floating in microgravity: “It just makes me feel like a little kid.”