Artemis II Moon Flyby: Lunar Science Results Highlighted

More than 800 gigabytes of Artemis II lunar science data – some of it previously unreleased – was released today, posted to NASA’s Planetary Data System. Most of the images from the mission were previously made public – although this Oct. 7 release is the official data archive with high resolution imagery and robust metadata. Audio recordings Other new material coming out includes the crew’s notes with annotated images, nearly a thousand new photos and videos from vehicle cameras, and more than 8.5 hours of audio recordings of the crew’s scientific observations from the lunar flyby. In addition, a number of reports were issued, detailing lessons learned about integrating science into Mission Control. Flash in the Pan…orama! While not “moonbreaking” science results — those will come later with scientific publishing – there’s a treasure trove of Artemis II insights, including audio recordings of the four-person crew are as they observe the Moon, seeing flashes resulting from lunar impactors. Interactive website “The Artemis II Lunar Science Team is very proud to announce the release of an interactive multimedia web page exploring today’s release as well as three reports to accompany the data,” noted Kelsey Young, Artemis II Lunar Science Lead, on behalf of the Artemis II Lunar Science Team. Visit the interactive website at: https://science.nasa.gov/feature/artemis-ii-preliminary-lunar-science-report/ Lunar science in this historic mission of Artemis II comes the first mission reports on crewed exploration of the Moon since the 1970’s, Young said. A new beginning “Our entire team put everything we had into not only the mission but in bringing these items to you today. Though our time as the active Lunar Science Team is ending, today marks a new beginning of you, the lunar community, being able to use the data to advance science discovery with this new tool in the planetary science toolbox,” said Young. Data archives The NASA Planetary Data System (PDS) announced the release of the data archives from the Artemis II mission. This release contains source, raw, processed, derived, browse, and document products from the mission: crew handheld camera images, Orion vehicle camera images and video, mission audio with transcripts and crew annotations, Orion storage locker temperature and humidity data, mission documents, and SPICE kernels. The data are archived at various PDS nodes. Mission documents and Orion environment data at the Geosciences Node Crew camera, Orion camera, and mission audio data at the Cartography and Imaging Sciences Node SPICE data at the NAIF Node The data may be accessed at: https://pds-geosciences.wustl.edu/missions/artemis2/index.htm Or for a bundle-oriented view: https://pds.nasa.gov/datasearch/subscription-service/SS-20261007.shtml Images acquired by the crew with the Apple iPhone 17 are not included in this delivery and will be archived at a later date, according to the PDS team. Check out these detailed reports and data user guide at: ARTEMIS II PRELIMINARY LUNAR SCIENCE REPORT: ARTEMIS II LUNAR SCIENCE DATA USER GUIDE: ARTEMIS II LUNAR SCIENCE OPERATIONS REPORT: