Watching the Artemis II Mission Unfold at JPL’s Space Flight Operations Facility
Watching the Artemis II Mission Unfold at JPL’s Space Flight Operations Facility

Description Staff at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California watch the agency’s Artemis II mission unfold soon after launch on April 1, 2026, at the Space Flight Operations Facility, which operates the Deep Space Network (DSN). The DSN comprises of three complexes in Goldstone, California; Madrid, Spain; and Canberra, Australia. Each complex has several […]

The Deep Space Network Acquires Artemis II Signal
The Deep Space Network Acquires Artemis II Signal

Description A graphical representation of the Deep Space Network’s radio frequency antennas indicate signal acquisition from NASA’s Artemis II mission to the Moon on April 1, 2026, inside the Space Flight Operations Facility at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California. Two antennas at the Madrid Deep Space Communications Complex, Deep Space Station 54 and […]

The Deep Space Network Acquires Artemis II Signal
The Deep Space Network Acquires Artemis II Signal

Description The acquisition of the radio frequency signal from the Artemis II crewed mission to the Moon by NASA’s Deep Space Network (DSN) is indicated by the peak in the data signal shown on the top computer screen.  Soon after the mission’s launch on April 1, 2026, at 6:35 p.m. EDT, NASA’s Near Space Network […]

Watching Over the Deep Space Network Before Artemis II Signal Acquisition
Watching Over the Deep Space Network Before Artemis II Signal Acquisition

Description Blanca Renteria, Artemis Deep Space Network (DSN) operations chief, monitors data at the Space Flight Operations Facility at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California shortly after Artemis II launched from the agency’s Kennedy Space Flight Center in Florida on April 1, 2026, at 6:35 p.m. EDT. The Space Flight Operations Facility operates the […]

Watching the Artemis II Launch From JPL’s Space Flight Operations Facility
Watching the Artemis II Launch From JPL’s Space Flight Operations Facility

Description Staff at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California watch the launch of the agency’s Artemis II mission to the Moon on April 1, 2026, at the Space Flight Operations Facility, which operates the Deep Space Network (DSN). Soon after launch, the Artemis II crew communicated with the Near Space Network while they were […]

JPL’s ‘Lucky Peanuts’ Before Artemis II Launch
JPL’s ‘Lucky Peanuts’ Before Artemis II Launch

Description A container of “lucky peanuts” sits above workstations within the Space Flight Operations Facility at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory shortly before the launch of the Artemis II mission to the Moon on April 1, 2026. Eating peanuts before launches and other major mission events is a longstanding tradition at JPL. The Space Flight Operations Facility operates […]

Supporting Artemis II From JPL’s Space Flight Operations Facility
Supporting Artemis II From JPL’s Space Flight Operations Facility

Description The Artemis II mission patch appears in the center screen of the Space Flight Operations Facility at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California on April 1, 2026, shortly before the mission launched to the Moon. A graphical representation of the antennas of the agency’s Deep Space Network (DSN), left, indicates which antennas are […]

NISAR’s View of Mount Rainier
NISAR’s View of Mount Rainier

Description This image captured by U.S.-Indian Earth satellite NISAR on Nov. 10, 2025, shows Washington’s Mount Rainier. The image is cropped from a much larger swath spanning the Pacific Northwest on a cloudy day; NISAR’s L-band SAR instrument is able to peer through the clouds at the surface below. In Pacific Northwest imagery from the […]

NISAR Views Mount St. Helens
NISAR Views Mount St. Helens

Description This image captured by U.S.-Indian Earth satellite NISAR on Nov. 10, 2025, shows Washington’s Mount St. Helens. The image is cropped from a much larger swath spanning the Pacific Northwest on a cloudy day; NISAR’s L-band SAR instrument is able to peer through the clouds at the surface below. In Pacific Northwest imagery from […]

SPARCS CubeSat ‘First Light’ Images
SPARCS CubeSat ‘First Light’ Images

Description This pair of images shows stars observed by the SPARCS (Star-Planet Activity Research CubeSat) space telescope simultaneously in the near-ultraviolet, left, and far-ultraviolet, right. These observations were recorded on Feb. 6, 2026, three weeks after the cube satellite, or CubeSat, launched aboard a SpaceX Falcon 9 on Jan. 11. The fact that one star […]