Moon fly-by live coverage: Artemis crew enter ‘nail-biting’ phase as they lose comms

View of the Moon from the Orion capsule as the crew set the record for the farthest distance humans have travelled from Earth.Credit: NASA

Updated 6 April 2026, 5.43 p.m. CDT (Houston time)

Communications with the astronauts are are dropping out for a while. As Orion passes behind the Moon, it and mission controllers back on Earth will lose contact for around 40 minutes. This is because the Moon is literally in the way. And unlike China, which has sent two telecommunications satellites to orbit the Moon, the United States does not have any lunar infrastructure in place to relay signals from the far side.

Expect a few nail-biting moments until the astronauts re-emerge. “Every time we see [the drop in comms], it is just like a movie,” says Barbara Cohen, a planetary scientist who is on the Artemis II lunar science team. “Hey, are you back yet? Hey, are you back yet?”

“We will see you on the other side,” astronaut Victor Glover told NASA. — Alexandra Witze

Updated 6 April 2026, 5.33 p.m. CDT (Houston time)

The astronauts have also been remarking quite a bit on the Moon’s ‘terminator’. This is the boundary between its illuminated side and its dark side that constantly moves as the Moon rotates on its axis. Astronomers like to observe the Moon along its terminator because the changing light conditions can reveal additional details about mountains, craters, valleys and other geological phenomena.

Artemis II astronaut and pilot Victor Glover in particular sounds captivated by the Moon’s terminator today. “What it does to the features of the Moon, to the terrain…there’s just so much magic in the terminator,” he said. “The islands of light, the valleys that look like black holes [where] you’d fall straight to the centre of the Moon if you stepped in some of those. It’s just so visually captivating — the terminator is the most striking thing I’ve seen so far.”

To him, one crater along the terminator looked like a dinosaur footprint. — Alexandra Witze

Updated 6 April 2026, 5.07 p.m. CDT (Houston time)

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