On April 6, four crew members of NASAArtemis II mission swooped around the far side of the moon In his Orion spacecraft, he disappeared from sight of Earth and lost all contact with humanity for approximately 40 minutes.
At the same time, about 250,000 miles (400,000 kilometers) away, Chris White, the mission’s chief communications officer, was nervously pacing the halls of NASA’s Mission Control Center in Houston, waiting for a chance to do his job again.
“It was all nerve-wracking,” said White, the principal integrated communications officer (INCO). Artemis IITold Live Science. In addition to maintaining communications with the Orion spacecraft (an impossible task while the Moon blocked every signal), the INCO team also controlled its external cameras – a task White had done before. International Space Station (ISS).
The team knew for more than a year what Orion’s lunar flight would involve, and what shots the cameras should capture. They had sent a checklist of about 300 commands to Orion that morning, telling the cameras exactly what to do after the spacecraft disappeared. Moon. All that was left was to wait.
After 40 minutes, as the Orion crew returned safely from behind the moon, fragments of telemetry data began to appear on White’s monitor. Voice contact soon followed. But it will still take another day for Orion’s flyby photos to cross the space between the moon and Houston. When White finally opened the file the next morning, his body failed him.
“I opened a photo – eclipse photo — and I couldn’t breathe,” White said. “I was like, ‘There’s no way this turned out this good on the first try.'”
The INCO team’s incredible Orion spacecraft photos have now been seen by millions of Earthlings. Live Science recently spoke to White to get the images and the inside story of the entire Artemis II mission, as seen from NASA Mission Control.
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Artemis II lead INCO Chris White (right) and INCO flight controller Matthew Johns (left) in the White Flight Control Room at NASA’s Mission Control Center in Houston on April 6. On the rear monitor, the Orion spacecraft approaches for a flyby close to the Moon.
(Image credit: NASA/Robert Markowitz)
Brandon Spector: Briefly, what was your job on the Artemis II mission?
Chris White: During the mission, the INCO console manages all communications systems on the spacecraft, as the name suggests. We handle not only the video and camera systems, but also the onboard audio systems – which was the first flight for that – the systems for radio communications and the optical communications systems, which was a Laser system on Artemis II. We also handle some other smaller systems.
During liftoff, I looked up from my console screen zero times to see live video.
BS: What was the atmosphere like during liftoff?
CW: so for lift offI was in the back, in a support room. The movement was intense. Everyone was completely focused on their work. During earlier simulations, we had fake, fake CGI scenes [of liftoff] To give us an idea of what we’re going to see. I always thought, “Man, this is going to look great in real time.” But then during liftoff, I looked up from my console screen zero times to see live video. So the next day, when I got a chance to breathe, I didn’t watch much of that footage.
The INCO team was basically absolutely busy, at least for the first three flight days. For a lot of people on my team, things didn’t – and I’m going to use air quotes – loosely “calm down” until after the third day of flying. I don’t think any of us really relaxed until the vehicle was safely in the water.
A view from cameras aboard the Orion spacecraft as the solid rocket booster is jettisoned several minutes after liftoff.
(Image credit: NASA)
BS: Let’s talk about the lunar flyby. What was your experience like watching the moon get closer with the crew?
CW: It was incredible. I have looked at the Moon through the ISS cameras, and I have watched the Moon gradually get bigger and bigger during the last five flight days. But there was something logarithmic about it – almost as if it got exponentially larger as we got closer to the Moon on the sixth day of flight.
And it seems a bit crazy to say that the moon was looking wrong. We have become so accustomed to seeing the Moon from our viewpoint on Earth that when the vehicle was approaching it from an angle, you could see more of the back of the Moon. So you’re surprised by getting closer to it and getting bigger and realizing what’s going to happen – but my brain is also hurting trying to wrap up what I’m seeing, because it doesn’t feel right. The shape and texture were different from what my brain expected.
The Orion spacecraft approaches the Moon as it flies by. “The moon looked wrong from this unusual angle,” White said.
(Image credit: NASA)
BS: And colors too, Based on what the astronauts said. Did you notice anything unusual in the color of the moon?
CW: It was difficult to tell. The bandwidth limitations of being so far from Earth made it difficult to distinguish many of the fine details. But there was a moment when we looked at it and we were like, “I think we can change the performance on this.” It was a little too dark, and then we amped it up a little bit. And suddenly, these light browns became a little more brown. I did not expect that we would be able to see this with our camera.
You can see more of it in some high-resolution photos taken by the crew. But it was really surprising to see how much more color became visible, even a little bit, as you got closer.
My brain started hurting trying to reconcile what I was seeing.
BS: When you were doing that flyby, did you have a strict checklist of shots to take?
CW: yes of course. The flyby was a highly choreographed event for the Orion cameras as well as the crew and the science community. But we started working on that plan a year ago and we knew what shots we wanted and when. The timing of all of these changes slightly depending on when you launch. So we had an outline, and then we made changes in time in the 24 hours before the events.
I think it was something like 290 commands total over the course of eight hours. We just scripted and time-tagged them and put them on the vehicle, so it clicked through to them.
Orion’s cameras capture Earthset – that surreal moment when the crescent Earth disappears beyond the moon’s horizon.
(Image credit: NASA)
BS: During the eclipse phase, when you were out of contact, how did it work?
CW: so we knew when earth set – and, hence, the beginning of loss of signal (LOS) – will occur and when earthrise occurs. And so we had the cameras at that point in a kind of time-lapse mode and then taking time lapses of 30-second intervals as the Earth got smaller and smaller behind the moon. It was all scripted.
And then, behind the Moon, during LOS, it continued taking pictures in slow motion. I think this happened once every few minutes. Basically, we had that all on a timer.
BS: How long after Chandrayaan took off did you get to see the pictures?
CW: Fortunately, that same night we had a great optical comm pass. So all those pictures came down to Earth via laser, and I saw them the next day. I did not see him at that moment; I saw them the next day.
And I opened that picture – the eclipse picture – and I couldn’t breathe. I was like, “There’s no way this turned out this good on the first try.”
BS: What’s the photo that stands out to you from the flyby?
CW: Yes, it absolutely is. A lot of the pictures you take in space, people say, “Oh, where are the stars?” And that’s because you have to point the camera at a very bright, shiny spacecraft in front of you, and all the stars fade into blackness in the background.
But because the Sun was behind the Moon, your focus has the Moon in the foreground, with the Sun bleeding from behind it. The stars and planets are all there. You can see Venus; You can see Saturn; You can see Mars. And then you have the glow of the spacecraft – it’s illuminated not by the Sun, but by the Earth – in the foreground. It was an incredible picture.
The Orion spacecraft experienced a total solar eclipse while orbiting behind the Moon. As the capsule begins to re-emerge, the spacecraft’s cameras again capture the first signs of sunlight bleeding into the scene.
(Image credit: NASA)
BS: What were you guys doing during that phase of losing signal? What was the atmosphere like then?
CW: I was wandering around the control center. The INCO team is responsible for maintaining as much communication as possible with the vehicle, and when you put a celestial body between us and the crew there’s really not much we can do about it.
It’s all nerves. It’s all about, “Hey, have we configured everything correctly? Is communication going to come back on the other side?” So when we were in LOS for 40 minutes, to distract myself, I just walked around the building and chatted with other people, just to try to keep myself distracted.
We didn’t start getting steady video until about three or four minutes after Earthrise, and then the crew called. And then I actually breathed a sigh of relief, when I heard the sound coming from the vehicle again.
BS: Do you feel different after this mission?
CW: People keep asking me this. I don’t know if I have enough time to fully unlock the missions. But I think it’s slowly coming to the realization that we’ve only sent four people around the Moon, which is literally further away from Earth than ever before. And I think, from that experience we not only changed them and the flight control team, but I think we also Many people’s perceptions about the Moon changedWhich is amazing.
BS: Do you know what your role will be for Artemis III?
CW: I definitely still plan on joining the INCO team for Artemis III. I will not lead that mission. But I definitely plan to still be on the console and hope to take some more incredible photos during that mission.
BS: Any closing thoughts?
CW: I just want to emphasize what a team effort this was. The vehicle’s cameras had a script and a plan that involved not only the INCO team. But to point these cameras, I have to angle the solar arrays forward in a specific direction, so I have to coordinate with the electricians. I sometimes have to ask GNC [guidance, navigation and control] The team has to rotate the vehicle itself, which is completely different from the way we do things on the ISS. Our imagery team was there handling camera settings and proper exposure. There are engineers who have developed these systems.
It wasn’t just me and the INCO team at the console. Achieving these was truly a complete flight control team effort.
Editor’s note: This interview has been condensed and lightly edited for clarity.
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