Reid Wiseman, commander of the Artemis II mission, filmed the celestial event on an iPhone 17 Pro Max. According to major media reports, Wiseman shared a 53-second video shot through Integrity’s docking hatch window, capturing an 'Earthset'. The video was taken as the Artemis II crew swooped around the moon’s far side, also called the dark side despite not being dark at all, according to major media.
Artemis II is a planned 10-day trip to the far side of the Moon and back, which would mark humanity's furthest ever journey into space. The crew includes Reid Wiseman, Victor Glover, Christina Koch, and Canadian astronaut Jeremy Hansen. However, sources conflict on the mission's status: according to some sources, Wiseman, Glover, Koch, and Hansen safely landed on Earth on April 10, splashing down in the Pacific, while others indicate the mission has not yet launched.
According to some sources, Artemis 2 in 2026 was a record-breaking mission, taking humans further into space than ever before, eclipsing Apollo 13's record. These reports state the mission included the first woman, Christina Koch, and first Black person, Victor Glover, to go beyond low Earth orbit, and that the Orion capsule recorded the fastest reentry ever.
The recent delay in NASA's moon landing program represents the latest in a string of technical, budgetary, workforce, and public perception challenges, according to research from five sources. Artemis II was pulled off the launch pad on Feb. 25 due to a recurrence of helium flow problems, pushing the launch back to April at the earliest, according to research from five sources. NASA identified the latest problem with Artemis II as a faulty helium seal in the SLS upper stage and is repairing it, according to research from five sources.
In February 2026, NASA's SLS rocket stood on the launch pad for Artemis II, but issues with liquid propellant and the upper stage caused it to roll back, according to research from five sources. During Artemis II's first wet dress rehearsal on Feb. 2, engineers detected a hydrogen leak at a service mast interface due to moisture in a Teflon seal, according to research from five sources. NASA postponed the launch to March 6 after the hydrogen leak, with a new wet dress rehearsal scheduled for Feb. 19, according to research from five sources.
During the second wet dress rehearsal, a helium leak was found in the interim cryogenic propulsion stage (upper stage) of the rocket, according to research from five sources. NASA said the 6 March launch day for Artemis II is now 'out of consideration' due to last-minute issues spotted during routine checks, according to research from five sources. Engineers observed an interruption in the flow of helium required for launch operations overnight on Friday, causing further delays, according to research from five sources.
Artemis I launched nearly six years after NASA's original target date, with 25 scrubbed or delayed attempts due to recurring hydrogen leaks, according to research from five sources. NASA has formally given up on the goal of returning humans to the moon by 2024, pushing it back to at least 2025, according to research from five sources. Artemis 2, previously scheduled for launch in 2023, has been delayed to as late as May 2024 due to pandemic impacts, supply chain issues, and hardware damage from storms, according to Jim Free, NASA associate administrator for exploration systems development.
The delay in the lunar landing is due in part to a legal challenge by Blue Origin to NASA's selection of SpaceX for the HLS award, which halted contact with SpaceX for seven months, according to NASA Administrator Bill Nelson. Congress provided only $850 million for HLS in fiscal year 2021, less than NASA's $3.3 billion request, contributing to delays, according to NASA Administrator Bill Nelson. The Trump administration's 2024 human landing target was not grounded in technical feasibility, according to NASA Administrator Bill Nelson.
The Artemis program depends on SpaceX's Starship Human Landing System (HLS) as the initial human lander, according to research from five sources. SpaceX struggled in 2025 to perfect the Starship V3 rocket necessary for the HLS mission, according to a NASA advisory panel report. The Starship V3 development is crucial for transferring fuel to an orbiting tanker, with roughly 12 fueling flights required for the HLS mission, according to research from five sources.
The cost of developing Orion has been rebaselined to $9.3 billion from fiscal year 2012 through Artemis 2, according to research from five sources.
An iPhone 6 is 120 million times faster than the Apollo Guidance Computer used in 1969, according to research from five sources. Modern iPhones have over one million times more RAM and seven million times more ROM than the 1969 lunar lander computer, according to research from five sources.
For 40 minutes, the astronauts had no contact with Earth, according to major media reports. They even saw a 53-minute solar eclipse from a vantage point no human has ever experienced – the sun slipping behind the moon, according to major media.
Photos from the lunar flyby show the Mare Orientale, a dark, ringed 600-mile-wide crater, which no pair of human eyes has ever seen in full, according to major media. A halo of wispy light leaked from the sides as a twinkly Venus, Mars and Saturn floated in the abyss behind it, according to major media. The moment the Earth poked from behind the moon’s pale grey edge is an Earthrise, which humans saw for the first time in 1968, according to major media.
This mission narrative presents a fundamental contradiction: some sources describe Artemis II as a completed mission with the crew safely returned, while others depict it as an upcoming mission mired in pre-launch delays. This discrepancy affects the understanding of NASA's current progress and the timeline of events.
The lag time since the last crewed U.S. spaceflight has stretched to three full years, raising concerns about public support, according to research from five sources. According to some sources, by reuniting with gravity, the team have helped pave the way for Nasa’s future Artemis missions to put astronauts back on the moon.
Several unknowns persist regarding the Artemis II mission. The current official launch date remains unclear due to conflicting delay reports, with some sources indicating a push to April and others noting the March 6 date is no longer viable. It is also uncertain whether Artemis II has already launched and returned or is still in pre-launch testing, as sources provide contradictory accounts. Specific technical issues, such as the helium seal repair and other potential hurdles, have not been fully resolved, and the total cost increase for the Artemis program due to delays remains unquantified.
The test was the second attempt at a wet dress rehearsal, having fixed earlier issues with filters and seals that led to hydrogen leaks, according to major media reports. The rocket was fuelled with around 730,000 gallons of propellant during the test, according to major media reports. According to major media, an 8x zoom would be about 200m, while the human eye is a mere 50mm.