April 7, 2026
Humanity's Farthest Journey: Artemis II Flies the Moon
The Artemis II crew has completed the most significant human spaceflight milestone since 1972 — a historic lunar flyby that took four astronauts further from Earth than any humans in history. In today's episode, Anna and Avery cover every moment of Flight Days 6 and 7, including the far-side blackout, a solar eclipse observed from beyond the Moon, and what comes next on the journey home. Plus: NASA faces another proposed 47% science budget cut, a cargo ship heads to the space station, Europe and China are about to launch a groundbreaking solar shield explorer called SMILE, and Blue Origin reveals its ambitious plan to map the Moon's hidden water ice. Today's Stories 1. Artemis II Days 6 & 7: The Lunar Flyby • The crew of Reid Wiseman, Victor Glover, Christina Koch, and Jeremy Hansen completed a 7-hour lunar flyby on April 6 • Orion reached a maximum distance of 252,760 miles from Earth, surpassing the Apollo 13 record of 248,655 miles • Closest lunar approach: 4,067 miles above the surface at approximately 7 p.m. EDT • Christina Koch became the first woman to complete a lunar flyby • The crew witnessed an Earthset, Earthrise, and a solar eclipse from behind the far side of the Moon • Day 7 is a rest day; splashdown in the Pacific is targeted for April 10 2. NASA FY2027 Budget Proposal • White House proposes $18.8 billion for NASA — a 23% overall reduction • Science Mission Directorate would be cut by 47%, from $7.25B to $3.9B • More than 40 missions face termination; Mars Sample Return and SERVIR named explicitly • Exploration/Artemis funding would increase by ~10% • Congress rejected nearly identical cuts last year 3. Cygnus NG-24 ISS Resupply • Launch targeted April 8 from Cape Canaveral on SpaceX Falcon 9 • Named S.S. Steven R. Nagel after four-time shuttle veteran • Carrying 11,000+ lbs including Cold Atom Lab upgrade and stem cell research hardware • Also includes Africa's ClimCam AI-powered climate camera from Egypt, Kenya, and Uganda 4. SMILE Mission — Launch April 9 • Joint ESA / Chinese Academy of Sciences mission; first ever jointly designed, built, launched and operated by both agencies • Launches April 9 on Vega-C from French Guiana; 3-year science mission • Will give humanity its first complete, simultaneous view of Earth's magnetosphere reacting to the solar wind • Four instruments: soft X-ray imager, UV aurora camera, light ion analyser, magnetometer • Science orbit reaches 121,000 km above North Pole; up to 40 hours continuous observation per orbit • Critical for understanding and predicting space weather — protecting satellites, power grids and communications 5. Blue Origin Oasis-1: Lunar Water Ice Prospecting • Introduced at the 2026 Lunar and Planetary Science Conference (LPSC) • Two-smallsat mission deployed from Blue Origin's uncrewed Mk1 lander; ultra-low 10x50 km polar orbit • Instruments: neutron spectrometer (water ice to 1m depth), magnetometer (metals), multispectral imager (Helium-3) • 90-day global mapping phase followed by 10-day controlled deorbit — science continues to impact • Partnership with Luxembourg Space Agency; data licensed commercially, non-commercial data released publicly via ESRIC • Phase 1 of a 3-phase Project Oasis roadmap: orbit survey, surface mobility, then extraction operations 6. April Skywatching • Comet C/2025 R3: closest approach April 27, magnitude ~8, binoculars needed • Lyrid meteor shower peaks April 21–22, look toward Lyra from 10pm • Mercury at best visibility of 2026 in the eastern pre-dawn sky Links & Resources • NASA Artemis II Flight Day 6 updates: nasa.gov • Planetary Society Artemis II guide: planetary.org • NASA FY2027 budget: spacenews.com • Cygnus NG-24 launch: nasaspaceflight.com • ESA SMILE mission: esa.int/smile • Blue Origin Oasis-1: blueorigin.com Connect With Us • Website: astronomydaily.io • Twitter/X: @AstroDailyPod • Instagram: @AstroDailyPod • TikTok: @AstroDailyPod • YouTube: Astronomy Daily • Tumblr: AstroDailyPod
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Welcome to Astronomy Daily, your daily guide to what's happening
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beyond our world.
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I'm Anna and I'm Avery, and today today's genuinely one
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of those days we will remember for the rest of
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our lives.
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Fifty four years. That's how long it's been since any
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human being flew around the far side of the Moon,
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and yesterday that streak ended.
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The Artemis two crew Read Wiseman, Victor Glover, Christina Cooke,
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and Jeremy Hansen completed a seven hour lunar flyby that
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has rewritten the history books. We've got the full story,
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plus a wild NASA budget battle, a European Chinese collaboration,
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a Blue Origin update, and a spacecraft headed to the
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space station.
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Strap in This is Astronomy Daily, Season five, episode eighty three.
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Let's kick things off with the big one of the day.
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Okay, let's start where the entire planet's attention has been focused.
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Two hundred and fifty two thousand, seven hundred and sixty
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miles from Earth.
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That's how far the Artemis to Orion spacecraft reached its
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maximum distance from Earth, officially breaking the record set by
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the Apollo thirteen crew back in April nineteen seventy. Apollo
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thirteen got to two hundred and forty eight thousand, six
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hundred and fifty five miles. Artemis two just beat that
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by more than four thousand miles.
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And they didn't just nudge the record. They went farther
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than any human beings in the history of our species.
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Let that sink in. The lunar fly by itself kicked
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off on flight day six, that's Monday, April sixth NASA
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scientists had prepared a packed science plan, thirty five specific
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geological targets on the lunar surface, pen science objectives, and
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the crew working in two person ships to photograph and
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document as much as possible. Closest approach came at just
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four thousand, sixty seven miles above the surface. That's close
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enough to see individual craters in extraordinary detail. From there,
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the spacecraft swung around the far side of the Moon
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and the crew went silent for about forty five minutes
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as the Moon blocked all communication with Earth.
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And when they came back, the crew described witnessing an
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Earth set and then an Earth rise as the Earth
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dropped below and then re emerged from the lunar horizon.
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Commander Reid Wiseman said, and I'm paraphrasing here that these
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numbers two hundred and fifty thousand miles are simply impossible
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for the human brain to process when you're actually living them.
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Mission specialist Christina Cock had an emotional moment too. She
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became the first woman in history to complete a lunar flyby,
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and when she spoke to NASA administrator Jared Isaacman, she
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said she wasn't ready to go home.
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Victor Glover described the Moon out the window as one
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of the darkest things they could see, with deep space
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behind it, appearing like a deep surreal blue stars visible
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even through that darkness. His words, it's a quite a
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wicked view.
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And another astronaut we believe it was, Jeremy Hanson, said,
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there are simply no adjectives that they need to invent
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new ones, just phenomenal.
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But it didn't stop there. As oryan swung back around,
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the crew witnessed something extraordinarily rare, a total solar eclipse,
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as seen from beyond the Moon's far side. The Sun
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disappeared behind the lunar disc for nearly an hour.
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And they used every second of it scientifically studying the
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solar Corona, glowing around the edge of the Moon, watching
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for meteoroid impacts on the lunar surface, and observing illuminated
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lunar dust. It was a science feast in the middle
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of a history making adventure.
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President Trump called in afterward to congratulate the crew, calling
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it one of the proudest moments for America. Commander Wiseman
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said his favorite site was watching Mars align with the
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other planets during the eclipse and musing about humanity becoming
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a two planet species.
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So where is the crew now? Day seven is a
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rest day, well earned. I'd say they eight brings a
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radiation shelter construction demonstration and manual piloting tests. Day ten,
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April tenth, is splashed down day the Pacific Ocean off
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San Diego.
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Between now and then, the spacecraft will perform three trajectory
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correction burns to fine tune its return path. And Orion's toilet,
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which has had a few headline worthy hiccups, appears to
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be operating normally now after a frozen waistline was resolved.
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The space toilet always a crowd pleaser, but genuinely the
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universal waste management system is being tested as the first
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deep space bathroom, critical technology for future long duration missions.
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Fun fact time. The Artemis two cruise wake up songs
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are curated by mission control and beamed up to start
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each day. The playlist is on Spotify look for it.
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It's a genuine artifact of this mission.
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Also, the crew's zero gravity indicator, the small toy or
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object that floats freely in the cabin showing when you've
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reached weightlessness, is an adorable stuffed animal they called Rise
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So far, it's living up to the name.
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And in a lovely Easter weekend moment before the flyby,
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pilot Victor Glover shared a message about how the mission
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reminds us of our shared humanity. As he said, we
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are the same thing, and we've got to get through
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this together. Beautiful sentiment. Two hundred and fifty thousand miles
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from home.
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The crew also attempted to recreate the famous Apollo eight
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earth rise photograph from nineteen sixty eight, one of the
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most important images in human history. We'll be watching for
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those photos as their downlink now.
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Even as the world celebrates Artemis two, there's a storm
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brewing back on Earth over NASA's finances. The White House
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Office of Management and budget released. It's FY twenty twenty
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seven budget for NASA, and it's a repeat of last
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year's deeply controversial cuts.
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The headline number eighteen point eight billion dollars. That's a
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twenty three percent reduction from NASA's current twenty four point
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four billion dollar budget, and the hardest hit the Science
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Mission Directorate, slashed by forty seven percent, from seven point
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twenty five billion dollars down to three point nine billion.
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Casey Dreyer of the Planetary Society called it bluntly an
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extinction level event for science. More than forty missions would
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be terminated, although the document only maims two specifically the
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Mars Sample Return Mission and the Severe Global Climate Data Program.
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Notably, exploration funding meaning ARTEMIS would actually increase by nearly
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ten percent to eight point five billion dollars. So the
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administration's message is clear, Humans to the moon, but science
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takes the hit.
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Here's the important context. Though Congress rejected almost identical cuts
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last year, the same eighteen point eight billion dollar request
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was made for FY twenty twenty six, and lawmakers chose
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to restore science funding across the board. Advocates say there's
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every reason to believe Congress will push back again.
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But the uncertainty is damaging regardless. Missions like the Nancy
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Grace Roman space telescope expected to launch later this year
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and the Dragonfly Titan rotorcraft are among those potentially in
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the crosshairs.
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While all eyes are on the Moon, the International Space
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Station isn't going hungry. Tomorrow, Wednesday, April eighth, a SpaceX
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Falcon nine is set to launch from Cape Canaveral, carrying
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Northrop Grumman's signas spacecraft on the NG twenty four mission.
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This signus has been named the SS Stephen R. Nagel
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in honor of the former NASA astronaut who flew four
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Space Shuttle missions and logged seven hundred and twenty three
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hours in space.
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The XL configuration is carrying more than eleven thousand pounds
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of supplies and science hardware for the expedition seventy three crew.
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Highlights include an upgrade to NASA's cold Atom Lab, which
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uses ultrapoled atoms to study quantum behavior, and equipment to
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help produce therapeutic stem cells for blood and cancer treatment research.
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There's also an AI powered climate camera built through a
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partnership between the Egyptian Kenyon and Ugandan space agencies. The
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climb Camp payload designed to provide near real time weather
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data for disaster management in East Africa.
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Unlike SpaceX's Dragon, Signus doesn't dock autonomously. Astronauts aboard the
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station use the canad Arm two robotic arm to capture it,
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then ground controllers dock it to the Unity Module, a
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real team effort between humans and ground control.
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Now, while Artemis two is grabbing most of the headlines,
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there's another remarkable mission launching in less than forty eight hours,
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and this one is a genuine first in the history
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of space science.
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On Thursday, April ninth, the SMILE mission lifts off from
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europe Spaceport in French Guiana on a Vegas Sea rocket.
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SMILE stands for the Solar Wind, Magnetosphere Ionosphere Link Explorer.
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What it promises to deliver is humanity's very first complete
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simultaneous view of how Earth's magnetic shield responds to the Sun.
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Think of it this way. Earth is constantly bombarded by
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charged particles streaming from the Sun the solar Wind. Our
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planet is protected by a massive invisible magnetic bubble called
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the magnetosphere. Without it, life on Earth simply could not exist.
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We've been studying pieces of this interaction for decades, but
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we've never been able to image the whole system at once.
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Smile will change that.
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It carries four instruments, a soft X ray imager, an
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ultraviolet aurora camera, a light ion analyzer, and a magnetometer,
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all working together in real time to capture the magnetosphere
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as a complete dynamic system for the first time ever.
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The orbit is extraordinary. After launch, Smile fires its engines
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eleven times over twenty five days to stretch its path
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into a highly elongated loop, reaching one hundred and twenty
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one thousand kilometers above the North Pole, been sweeping back
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down to just five thousand kilometers above the South pole
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to beam its data home. Each orbit takes roughly two days.
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At its high point over the North Pole, Smile will
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continuously image the entire day side magnetosphere for up to
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forty hours per orbit. That's the longest uninterrupted auroral observation
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ever planned from space, a capability that's been missing since
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two thousand and eight.
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There's also a remarkable geopolitical dimension here. Smile is a
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joint mission between ESA and the Chinese Academy of Sciences,
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the first mission ever jointly designed, built, launched, and operated
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by both agencies. That partnership has survived a decade of development,
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technical setbacks, COVID delays, and considerable political headwinds. The fact
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that it's launching at all is itself a statement.
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And the practical stakes are high. Better understanding of space
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weather and earlier prediction of solar storms protects satellites, power grids,
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financial systems, and communications networks worldwide. Liftoff is set for
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zero seven twenty nine BST on April ninth, with life
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coverage on ESA WebTV.
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The name Smile comes from the mission acronym, but there's
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a literal smile involved too. ESA's simulations of what the
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X ray camera will see show a smiley faced shaped
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pattern of X ray emission from Earth's magnetosphere, which may
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be the most delightful coincidence in all of space science.
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The spacecraft weighs twenty three hundred kilograms, but fifteen hundred
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and eighty of those kilograms are fuel. It burns through
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ninety percent of its propellant in the first month alone
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just to reach its science orbit. It's essentially a fuel
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tank attached to instruments.
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Here's a story that connects directly to Artemis two and
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the dream of long term human presence on the Moon.
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We know there's water ice locked in the permanently shadowed
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craters near the lunar south Pole, but we don't really
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know how much or exactly where Blue Origin wants to
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fix that.
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Earlier this year, at the Lunar and Planetary Science Conference,
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Blue Origin formally introduced Oasis one, the first mission in
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what it's calling Project Oasis, a multi phase initiative to identify, assess,
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and ultimately use the Moon's resources in C two. Oasis
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one is a two spacecraft mission, a pair of small
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SATs to be deployed from Blue Origins uncrewed MK one Lander.
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The two spacecraft will enter a highly elliptical, low polar orbit,
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with their lowest point skimming just ten kilometers above the
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lunar South Pole, close enough to collect extraordinarily detailed data
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about what's actually in those permanently shadowed regions.
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The instrument suite is purpose built for prospecting, neutron spectroscopy
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to measure subsurface waterized concentrations down to one meter depth,
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magnetometers for metal detection, a multi spectral push broom spectrometer
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for helium three and geological mapping. It's essentially a mining
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survey from orbit with resolution in some modes down to
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less than five meters per pixel.
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And then comes the finale. After ninety days of global mapping,
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Oasis one conducts a controlled slow motion descent a ten
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day de orbit face where the instruments keep working at
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ultra low altitudes right up until impact. Bill be mapping
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water deposits at hundreds of meters per pixel in those
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final hours science right to the end.
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The commercial model is fascinating too. Blue Origin plants to
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license the resulting resource maps to other companies who need
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that data to design lunar mining hardware and attract investors.
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Any data without direct commercial use goes public via the
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European Space Resources Innovation Center. It's open science built on
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a commercial backbone.
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The project is a partnership with Luxembourg and its Small
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Space Agency, continuing that small nations long tradition of being
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surprisingly central to the space resources industry, and it ties
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directly into Blue Origin's Blue Alchemist program, which aims to
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process lunar regolith into oxygen, solar cells and power cables.
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The Moon as a self sustaining infrastructure.
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Hub, as Blue Origins VP of Advanced Concepts Pat Rami
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has put it, once we know what's really there and
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