Artemis II crew take new photo of far side of the moon

The crew of NASA's Artemis II mission captured a new photo of the far side of the moon on Saturday, on the fourth day of the astronauts' lunar journey.

NASA released the image on Sunday. In it, the moon is oriented upside down, with its South Pole facing upward and parts of its far side visible, according to the agency's description. The Orientale basin, a massive crater that's hard to see from Earth, is situated along the right edge of the moon in the latest picture, NASA said, adding that the Artemis II voyage marks the first time humans have ever seen the basin in full.

The Orientale basin will be an ongoing subject of study for members of the Orion spacecraft's four-person crew, which includes commander Reid Wiseman, pilot Victor Glover, and mission specialists Christina Koch and Jeremy Hansen.

"The Artemis II crew will continue to observe Orientale from multiple angles as they approach the Moon and throughout the lunar flyby," said NASA. The agency noted how the basin can be "used as a baseline to compare other impact craters on rocky worlds from Mercury to Pluto." 

The Artemis II mission lifted off from Cape Canaveral, Florida, last week, in the first piloted moonshot since the Apollo program more than 50 years ago. It is meant to be a test flight that sets the stage for future missions that return astronauts to the moon.

On "Face the Nation with Margaret Brennan" Sunday, NASA Administrator Jared Isaacman underscored that collecting data observations and data is the mission's primary goal right now.

"We want to gather as much data as we possibly can for that," he said. "Of course, there's various science experiments, there's lunar observations, but learning as much as we can about Orion is critically important, because Artemis III is a year away."

Artemis II was about 64,000 miles from the Moon on Sunday, according to NASA. A mission status update shared just before 12:30 p.m. ET said the crew had recently woken up for the fifth day of their flight to the song "Working Class Heroes (Work)" by CeeLo Green. A flight controller sitting in mission control "was seen briefly dancing in his chair" to the wakeup call, it said. 

Later on Sunday, Artemis II is due to enter the lunar sphere of influence, which is the point where the pull of the Moon's gravity becomes stronger than the pull of the Earth's. The crew will have a full day to test their spacesuits and conduct other flight tests as they move toward the moon. NASA will host a televised briefing about the mission Sunday evening from the Johnson Space Center.