{"id":590396,"date":"2026-04-07T02:57:09","date_gmt":"2026-04-07T02:57:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/590396\/"},"modified":"2026-04-07T02:57:09","modified_gmt":"2026-04-07T02:57:09","slug":"artemis-ii-live-astronauts-witness-total-solar-eclipse-after-regaining-contact-with-earth-following-moon-fly-by","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/590396\/","title":{"rendered":"Artemis II live: Astronauts witness total solar eclipse after regaining contact with Earth following Moon fly-by"},"content":{"rendered":"

Connection re-established with Artemis IIpublished at 00:27 BST 7 April<\/p>\n

00:27 BST 7 AprilBreaking<\/p>\n

\"\"Pallab Ghosh
Science correspondent<\/p>\n

Right on schedule, Orion has reappeared from behind the Moon and checked back in with Earth.<\/p>\n

First came the reassuring return of the radio signal on engineers’ monitors, then a burst of data, and finally a clear voice from the capsule. The words were unremarkable – the relief in Mission Control was not.<\/p>\n

“Houston, Integrity, comm check,” mission specialist Christina Koch said as she broke the silence from Orion.<\/p>\n

“It is so great to hear from Earth again.”<\/p>\n

During the 40 minutes of radio silence, the spacecraft had to look after itself.<\/p>\n

Its onboard computers carried out a key engine burn on the far side \u2013 unseen and unheard from Earth \u2013 to bend Orion onto its return arc. <\/p>\n

In human spaceflight there is always a tiny edge of uncertainty until you hear the crew again.<\/p>\n

Families watching from the viewing gallery have spent the blackout poring over briefing notes, trying not to watch the clock.<\/p>\n

Now that contact is restored, the data backlog will pour in.<\/p>\n

Stored telemetry and images from the far side will be relayed through NASA\u2019s Deep Space Network, ready for engineers and scientists to comb through in the coming days.<\/p>\n

Early thumbnails hint at some of the most detailed views yet of the Moon\u2019s hidden hemisphere.<\/p>\n

For the crew, there is little time to savour the moment.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Connection re-established with Artemis IIpublished at 00:27 BST 7 April 00:27 BST 7 AprilBreaking Pallab GhoshScience correspondent Right…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":590397,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[64,63,128],"class_list":{"0":"post-590396","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-science","8":"tag-au","9":"tag-australia","10":"tag-science"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/590396","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=590396"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/590396\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/590397"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=590396"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=590396"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=590396"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}