Artemis II: The First Photos of the Moon's Far Side Become Smartphone Wallpapers

Fourteen shots, a historic flyby. The NASA has released a collection of mobile device wallpapers taken from photographs captured by the Artemis II crew during the lunar flyby on April 6, the first with humans accomplished in over fifty years. The images, all in JPEG format and available for free download, document regions of our satellite never photographed by human eyes in space.

Launched on April 1 from the Kennedy Space Center aboard the Space Launch System (SLS) Block 1 rocket, the Orion capsule Integrity, carrying Reid Wiseman, Victor Glover, Christina Koch, and Jeremy Hansen, executed a flyby orbit around the far side of the Moon following a free return trajectory, similar to that of Apollo 13 in 1970. On April 6, during the flyby, the crew reached a distance of 406,740 km from Earth, surpassing the record held by Apollo 13 for 56 years. The flyby phase lasted about seven hours, from 20:45 to 3:20 Italian time on April 7.

Among the 14 published wallpapers are shots that show panoramas of the far side of the Moon and Earth setting beyond the lunar limb. The highlights are the shots named In Eclipse and Eclipse View from Orion: on April 6, the alignment between the Sun, the Moon, and the Orion capsule produced a total solar eclipse observed directly from space, with the crew wearing protective glasses. The scientific data collected during the eclipse includes images of the solar corona, lunar dust lifted from the surface, and six meteoritic impacts recorded as flashes on the unlit side of the Moon.

As had been done in the past with the Apollo missions, the visual material produced in-flight also constitutes a scientific document. It is worth noting that the visual reconnaissance of the Moon’s far side by astronauts had already been analyzed in terms of scientific value in the context of Artemis I, the uncrewed mission that in 2022 followed the same free return path, gathering the first close-up images with modern technology.

The mission is nearing completion. After the flyby, Orion Integrity has entered the return trajectory to Earth. The splashdown is anticipated during the night between April 10 and 11, 2026, around 02:07 Italian time, off the coast of San Diego. The final phase includes the separation of the European service module (ESA), atmospheric re-entry with the thermal shield at over 1,600°C, and slowing down via parachute until the immersion in the Pacific Ocean. Artemis II does not include a lunar landing: it is an end-to-end test of SLS and Orion in preparation for landing missions, the first of which is named Artemis III and is scheduled for 2028.

The wallpapers can be downloaded at this address.