NASA's Artemis II mission experienced a brief 40-minute communications blackout during its lunar flyby, but it was a planned and anticipated part of the mission.
The blackout occurred when the Orion spacecraft passed behind the Moon, blocking the direct line of sight between the spacecraft and Earth, and preventing radio signals from being transmitted.
As there are no relay satellites positioned around the Moon's far side, communication becomes temporarily impossible whenever a spacecraft moves into that region.
NASA had anticipated this blackout and built it into mission timelines, predicting the loss of signal to begin around 6:44 pm ET and last approximately 40 minutes.
During this period, voice communication between astronauts and mission control was completely cut off, telemetry and spacecraft data could not be transmitted, and ground teams had to wait for Orion to reappear from behind the Moon.
Despite the silence on Earth, the spacecraft continued functioning normally, and the crew followed pre-planned procedures while Orion relied on its autonomous systems to navigate and operate independently.
The blackout also coincided with a key phase of the mission: Orion's closest approach to the Moon.
Once the spacecraft emerged from the lunar far side, communication links were restored, and normal operations resumed without any issues.
The Artemis II crew set a new record during the mission, traveling farther from Earth than any humans before, with Orion reaching over 252,000 miles from Earth at its farthest point.
Following the lunar flyby, Orion is continuing on a free-return trajectory back to Earth, and the mission is expected to conclude with a splashdown in the Pacific Ocean near California after roughly 10 days in space.
