Artemis II: The Flight Back to the Moon | Deep Field Archive

On April 1, 2026, four astronauts left Kennedy Space Center aboard Orion "Integrity" and flew around the Moon - the first humans beyond low Earth orbit since 1972. Ten days, one figure-eight free return, a 54-minute solar eclipse behind the lunar limb, the faintest impact flashes ever seen by human eyes, and a 56-year-old distance record from Apollo 13, broken by 4,101 miles. Everything in this film comes from NASA's own record: flight reports, crew photography and the lunar science dataset released after the crew came home. CHAPTERS 00:00 Cold open: 41 minutes of silence, 54 minutes of eclipse 0:01:02 The long hiatus: Apollo 17 to Artemis I 0:02:38 The machine: SLS and Orion Integrity 0:04:13 The crew: Wiseman, Glover, Koch, Hansen 0:06:10 Launch: April 1, 2026, 6:35 p.m. EDT 0:07:47 Outbound coast: Hello, World 0:08:53 The far side: flyby, terminator, flashes, eclipse 0:11:38 The record: 252,756 miles from Earth 0:12:13 Coming home: re-entry and splashdown 0:13:21 What comes next: dataset, medal, Artemis III and IV 0:14:26 Credit: all footage is public domain Footage: NASA video archive and NASA image library - GSFC, Johnson, KSC, MSFC. All footage is public domain. Narration and infographics by Deep Field Archive.