The crew of NASA’s Artemis II mission is currently navigating the final leg of their historic journey, heading back toward Earth after becoming the first humans in over five decades to travel near the Moon. The mission, which has pushed human exploration to its farthest distance from Earth to date, is now entering a critical phase as the Orion spacecraft prepares for atmospheric reentry and a water landing off the coast of California.
The four-person crew—NASA astronauts Reid Wiseman, Christina Koch, and Victor Glover, alongside Canadian Space Agency astronaut Jeremy Hansen—recently completed a lunar flyby. On Monday, April 7, 2026, the team conducted observations of the Moon’s far side. In a poignant moment during the mission, the crew named a crater they spotted from the capsule after Carroll Wiseman, the late wife of Mission Commander Reid Wiseman.
This mission represents a significant leap in deep-space capability, testing how the Orion spacecraft’s systems perform with a human crew in the harsh environment of deep space over an approximately 10-day duration.
For those following the journey, NASA has provided several ways to monitor the spacecraft’s progress in real time. The Artemis Real-time Orbit Website (AROW) and the official NASA app allow the public to track Orion’s distance from Earth and the Moon, its speed, and its overall trajectory. The mobile app also features an augmented reality tracker that allows users to locate the spacecraft’s position in the sky relative to their own location on Earth.
The AROW system utilizes data from sensors on Orion, transmitted to the Mission Control Center at NASA’s Johnson Space Center in Houston. This real-time telemetry began shortly after liftoff and will continue until the capsule’s reentry. Users can also explore key lunar milestones and data regarding Apollo program landing sites through these digital tools.
Commander Reid Wiseman, a 44-year-old graduate of Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute and a NASA astronaut since 2009, is leading the team home. His experience includes serving as the commander of the NEEM021 at the Aquarius Reef Habitat in 2016.
As the mission nears its conclusion, the focus shifts to the high-stakes process of atmospheric reentry, marking the culmination of a trailblazing effort to return humans to the vicinity of the Moon.
