Some 270,000 miles from Earth, NASA's Orion — the spacecraft currently used in the Artemis moon-orbiting mission—quietly observes the Moon. Of course, our planet can also be seen from the spacecraft's point of view. As it flies in a path opposite the Moon's (called a retrograde lunar orbit), Orion sees both heavenly bodies glide. And Orion's not the only one who can see this happen. We can see it, too, because NASA is streaming live footage captured from the Orion cameras. The live views of the moon mission can be seen in real-time through this link.
This is not the first time a spacecraft has broadcast from that region in space. The Apollo missions also did that decades ago, like the special Christmas broadcast from Apollo 8 on Dec. 24, 1968. This recent broadcast, however, is said to be the highest-definition live view to date.
The photos and videos captured by Orion will be used as a knowledge base for the Artemis programs that will follow the current one (Artemis I). As in NASA's timeline, Artemis 2 is expected to launch and loop around the Moon in 2024. Artemis 3, on the other hand, is expected to land people on the Moon's surface in 2025 or 2026.
(Image Credit: NASA)