Leonard David's INSIDE OUTER SPACE

Artemis 2 crewmembers will cruise by the moon during their mission, an eye-encounter of the lunar kind. What might they observe on their voyage?
Image credit: NASA/Kennedy Space Center

Specialists are now pulling together potential photography assignments for the crewed NASA Artemis 2 Moon flyby, now projected to occur in September 2025.

Surprisingly, one conceivable duty is keeping an eye out for flashes. It turns out that during the Apollo lunar landing program (1969-1972), there were three impact-induced flashes by meteors observed by astronauts.

Artwork depicts a small but powerful meteor strike on the Moon.
Image credit: Steve Roy, NASA/Marshall Space Flight Center

Kodak moments

Data gathered during the Apollo era flagged those flashes, and lunar scientists have started plotting out photographic nice-to-have “Kodak Moments” for the four-person Artemis 2 crew to consider during out-the-windows viewing.

Tucked inside their Orion spacecraft, they will be hurled moonward by the NASA Space Launch System (SLS) rocket and travel roughly 4,600 miles beyond the far side of the moon during the nearly 10 day voyage.

For more information on this lunar lightshow, go to my new Space.com story – “Apollo 17 astronauts saw strange flashes on the moon. Will Artemis crews see them too?”

https://www.space.com/artemis-astronauts-see-flashes-on-the-moon-apollo-17