NASA’s Artemis II crew in Orion completed a manual piloting demonstration and reviewed their lunar flyby plan to wrap up their third full day in space.
NASA astronaut Christina Koch and CSA (Canadian Space Agency) astronaut Jeremy Hansen took turns controlling the spacecraft to test its performance in deep space starting at 9:09 p.m. EDT. For 41 minutes, the pair tested two different thruster modes, six degrees of freedom and three degrees of freedom, to provide engineers with more data about the spacecraft’s piloting capabilities. Commander Reid Wiseman and Pilot Victor Glover are scheduled to repeat the demo on flight day 8 – Wednesday, April 9 – to give the teams on the ground as many perspectives on the spacecraft as possible.
Lunar imaging targets received by crew
Over the course of the day, the crew also reviewed a list sent by the lunar science team of surface features on the Moon that they will photograph and analyze during their six-hour flyby on Monday, April 6. The flyby period begins at 2:45 p.m. April 6, when Orion’s main cabin windows will be pointed toward the Moon.
Earlier in the day, the Moon-bound quartet also took some crew selfies using one of Orion’s solar array wing cameras. The images should be sent to the ground in the coming days.
The Artemis II crew is scheduled to go to sleep for the night at 3:15 a.m.; Mission Control will wake them to begin flight day 5 at noon on Sunday, April 5.
View the latest imagery from the Artemis II mission on our Artemis II Multimedia Resource Page. Please follow @NASAArtemis on X, Facebook, and Instagram for real-time updates. Live coverage of the mission is available on NASA’s YouTube channel.
Catherine E. WilliamsNASA CommunicationsApril 4, 2026 10:44PM
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