Author’s note: This story was updated on November 18 after the event was rescheduled due to inclement weather at the telescope site.
NASA’s Artemis 1 Orion spacecraft is making its first test mission to the moon, and you can see the spacecraft’s telescope view online Saturday night (Nov. 19).
The Orion spacecraft The agency’s first ride to the moon launched at 1:47 a.m. EST (0647 GMT) on Wednesday (Nov. 16) from NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida. Space Launch System Megarocket in orbit. A few hours later, the rocket’s upper stage fired to send its engine Artemis 1 Orion capsule and its journey the moon. That’s where tonight’s live webcast comes in.
Gianluca Massi, an astrophysicist at the Virtual Telescope Project in Secano, Italy, will attempt to stream Orion live telescope views online during a planned live broadcast event. 10:30pm EST (0330 November 20 GMT). You can view it for free in the window above or Directly from the Virtual Telescope Project website (opens in new tab).
Artemis 1 launch photos: Amazing footage of NASA’s moon rocket launch
Live Notifications: NASA’s Artemis 1 lunar mission
“Launch of Artemis 1 We’re more than just going back to the moon. This is the beginning of a new era,” Masi wrote in a statement. “Due to the historic importance of this event, we decided to try something that (to our knowledge) had never been done before: we would share live images online. Orion spacecraft en route to the moon after its launch.”
It is not certain that the Virtual Telescope project will be able to find the Orion spacecraft. First, Italy’s weather had to cooperate, then Massi could use his telescope to spot a relatively small, fast-moving target in the vacuum of space.
“We’ll do our best to show you the Artemis 1 Orion spacecraft on its way to the moon, visible from Italy,” Masi wrote. “We will consider the launch and trajectory data provided by JBL Horizons/Solar System Dynamics Services properly imported into our robotic telescopes to best observe this highly demanding target.”
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