Artemis 1 Orion spacecraft sees the moon for 1st time in stunning video - Space.com

Orion is now over halfway to the moon for its 25-day Artemis 1 mission.

NASA's Orion spacecraft has spotted the destination of its Artemis 1 test flight the moon and captured a stunning video to mark the moment. .

In a video released Friday (Nov. 18), the half-lit moon is visible in the distance with the Orion spacecraft in the foreground, complete with NASA's "worm" logo, as seen from a camera on the tip of one of the capsule's four solar wings.

"On the third day of the Artemis I mission, Orion maneuvered its solar arrays and captured the moon with a camera mounted on the end of the array," NASA wrote in the video description (opens in new tab). .

NASA launched Orion on is uncrewed Artemis 1 mission on Wednesday (Nov. 16) atop the agency's first Space Launch System (SLS), which is now the world's most powerful rocket.

NASA is using the mission as a flight as a test for its Artemis program to see if the SLS rocket and Orion are ready to fly astronauts to the moon, with a crewed lunar landing targeted for 2025.

You can launch a Space Launch System of your own with this Estes NASA SLS model rocket (opens in new tab) for a 1:200 scale version of NASA's moon megarocket.

Artemis 1 launch photos: Amazing views of NASA's moon rocket debut.

Live updates: NASA's Artemis 1 moon mission.

The first episode, which NASA also dropped on Friday, chronicles the first three days of the Artemis 1 mission, including stunning views of spacecraft separation from its SLS rocket upper stage, cubesat deployment milestones and an update from NASA's Dan  Huot on how the mission has gone so far.

— Artemis 1 moon rocket spotted from space (satellite radar image).

As of early Saturday (Nov. 19), the Artemis 1 Orion spacecraft was 216,391 miles (348,247 kilometers) from Earth, 93,048 miles (149,746 km) from the moon and cruising through space at 995 mph (1,601 kph), according to NASA.

You can track Orion through space on its mission through NASA's Track Artemis website (opens in new tab)!