As NASA invites the public to follow the Artemis II mission as a crew of
four astronauts venture around the Moon inside the agency’s Orion spacecraft,
people around the world can pinpoint Orion during its journey using the Artemis
Real-time Orbit Website (AROW).
During the approximately 10-day
mission, NASA will test how the spacecraft’s systems operate as designed with
crew aboard in the deep space environment. Using AROW, anyone with internet
access can track where Orion and the crew are, including their distance from
Earth, distance from the Moon, mission duration, and more. Access to AROW
is available on:
Using AROW, the public can
visualize data that is collected by sensors on Orion and then sent to the
Mission Control Center at NASA’s Johnson Space Center in Houston during its
flight. It will provide constant information using this real-time data beginning
about one minute after liftoff through Orion’s atmospheric reentry to Earth at
the end of the mission.
Online, users can follow AROW to see where Orion and
the Artemis II crew are in relation to the Earth and the Moon and follow
Orion’s path during the mission.
Credit: NASA
Online, users can follow AROW to see where Orion and the crew are in relation
to the Earth and the Moon and follow Orion’s path during the mission. Users can
view key mission milestones and characteristics on the Moon, including
information about landing sites from the Apollo program.
The mobile app includes similar features to the website, with the addition of
augmented reality tracker. After a brief calibration sequence, on-screen
indicators will direct users where to move their phone to see where Orion
currently is relative to their position on Earth. Mobile app tracking will be
available once Orion separates from the rocket’s upper stage, approximately
three hours into the mission.
The AROW mobile app includes similar features to the
website, with the addition of augmented reality tracker that will direct users
where to move their phone to see where Orion currently is relative to their
position on Earth.
Credit: NASA
State vectors, or data that describes precisely where Orion is located and
how it moves, also will be provided by AROW, following a proximity operations
demonstration to evaluate the manual handling qualities of Orion.
These vectors can be used for data
lovers, artists, and creatives to make their own tracking app or data
visualization. Also available for download will be trajectory data from the flight, called an ephemeris, found at the bottom of this
page, after the mission begins. The ephemeris data can be used to track Orion
with your own spaceflight software application or telescope, or to create
projects such as a physics model, animation, visualization, or tracking
application.
Artemis II, the agency’s first
crewed mission in the Artemis campaign, is a key step in NASA’s path toward
establishing a long-term presence at the Moon and confirming the systems needed
to support future lunar surface exploration and paving the way for the first
crewed mission to Mars.
As four astronauts travel around the
Moon on NASA’s Artemis II mission, they will venture beyond Earth's
protective magnetic field. The crew’s spacecraft, Orion, will carry and protect
them as they journey into deep space and serves as the main protection against
the Sun’s intense power. During their 10-day flight, NASA and the
National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration
(NOAA) will monitor the Sun around the
clock and translate space weather conditions into real-time
decisions to protect the astronauts.
Space weather refers
to the changing conditions driven by solar wind and
eruptions from the Sun. Solar flares are the most powerful eruptions in
the solar system, the strongest
unleashing more energy than a billion hydrogen bombs.
Coronal mass ejections are giant clouds of solar particles hundreds of times
the size of Earth that burst from the Sun.
While both flares and coronal mass
ejections can affect technology, the primary concern for
astronauts is the solar particle events they can trigger,
accelerating some particles to near light speed. If a significant solar
particle event occurs near the Artemis II crew, it could raise
radiation levels inside the spacecraft. Too high a total lifetime
exposure can contribute to increased risks of
developing cancer or health disorders that could impair
cognition and performance. During the Artemis II mission, NASA will minimize
that risk.
For the first time in half a century, four
astronauts are leaving Earth’s protective magnetic field to enter a realm where
massive solar eruptions can unleash more energy than a billion hydrogen bombs.
The Artemis II crew will fly through a dangerous environment, but they’re not
going it alone. On the voyage, the astronauts and their Orion capsule are
outfitted with radiation trackers as ground teams monitor solar eruptions 24/7.
Here’s how NASA and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA)
are protecting explorers from the most powerful eruptions in the solar system. NASA/Joy Ng
Tracking solar eruptions
“Our focus will be real-time space
weather analysis, prioritizing solar energetic particles and events that could
produce them,” said Mary Aronne, operations lead for the space
weather analysis office at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt,
Maryland. “We’re looking for the trigger, which would typically be a flare or a
coronal mass ejection.”
This animation shows a solar eruption that produces a
solar flare, a coronal mass ejection, and a flurry of energetic particles. The
particles follow the spiral shape of the solar wind's magnetic fields into
interplanetary space.
NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center Conceptual Image
Lab
The Goddard team will track any solar eruptions that
occur, measuring how big they are, how
fast they’re moving, and how likely they are to generate
energetic particles that will cross Orion’s path. To this end, they’ll
use real-time data from Sun-watching spacecraft strategically placed
across the solar system, such as NASA’s recently launched
Interstellar Mapping and Acceleration Probe, NASA’s Solar Dynamics
Observatory, the ESA (European Space Agency)/NASA Solar
and Heliospheric Observatory, NOAA’s Geostationary
Operational Environmental Satellites-19 satellite, and many others.
Other NASA spacecraft also will
help monitor the Sun. Due to Mars’ current position, NASA’s Perseverance Mars rover can look at the far side of the Sun, where Earth
has no view. The rover’s Mastcam-Z cameras can give NASA’s space
weather teams a view of the largest sunspots up to two weeks earlier so the team
can monitor and prepare for possible solar
flares.
NASA’s Perseverance Rover captured these images of
sunspots crossing the Sun from its vantage point on the Martian surface between
February 24 - 27, 2026. Mars is currently on the opposite side of the Sun,
giving the rover a view of sunspots not visible from Earth. Perseverance will
monitor sunspots leading up to and during the Artemis II launch window, giving
the Moon to Mars Space Weather Analysis Office (M2M SWAO) and Space Radiation
Analysis Group (SRAG) teams advance notice of regions that could produce solar
eruptions before they rotate onto the Earth-facing side of the Sun.
NASA/JPL-Caltech/ASU/MSSS/SSI
Monitoring crew exposure
Energetic solar particles don't stream
straight out from the Sun. They spiral along the Sun’s magnetic field lines,
tracing loops tens of thousands of miles
across and scattering due to particle collisions along the way. The chaotic
swarm is so large that, from inside it, particles seem to
be coming from every direction.
“It’s more like you’re sitting in a
bathtub and it’s gradually filling with water,” said Stuart George, a space
radiation analyst at NASA Johnson.
That gradual rise in
radiation gives analysts time to evaluate the situation. Inside Orion, six
radiation sensors, part of the Hybrid Electronic Radiation Assessor system designed and built by
NASA, measure dose rates in different parts of the cabin.
Artemis II astronauts also wear personal
radiation trackers called crew active dosimeters. If
radiation levels increase, Orion’s onboard systems display warnings accompanied
by an audible alarm.
Artist’s concept of the components of the Orion
spacecraft.
NASA
NASA has dosage level
thresholds they'll look for inside Orion. The first threshold
signals a caution, prompting closer monitoring and coordination with
medical and flight operations teams. A higher threshold triggers a recommendation
for the crew to take shelter.
Radiation shielding in space
is all about mass. Charged particles are slowed and absorbed as they
pass through matter. Astronauts are trained to reconfigure their
cabin during a solar particle event, removing stowed
equipment from storage bays and securing it along areas of the
cabin to add mass between themselves and incoming
particles. Since Artemis II is the first crewed Artemis
mission, testing this procedure in the Orion spacecraft is a major objective of
the mission.
“Once crews add mass to the places
that tend to be hotter in terms of radiation exposure, they
can then continue to go about their duties,” George said.
Artist’s concept of the Trajectory for Artemis II,
NASA’s first flight with crew aboard SLS and Orion to pave the way for
long-term return to the Moon and missions to Mars.
NASA
The complexity of solar particle
events is one reason NASA places spacecraft across the solar system.
During a solar storm in January, NASA analysts tracked a coronal mass ejection
on its way to Earth. When it arrived, satellites detected two
distinct spikes in energetic particles where there would normally be
one. Measurements from NASA’s BioSentinel CubeSat, deployed during the Artemis I mission, revealed what
happened. The spacecraft, about 55 million miles away from
Earth, detected a distinct eruption that later merged
with the coronal mass ejection headed to
Earth. Ultimately, two separate eruptions occurred.
The
crew also must account for exposure to Earth’s
radiation belts and galactic cosmic rays. The Van Allen
Radiation Belts are two rings of high energy particles that
surround our planet. Any mission headed to the Moon or farther must pass
through them. Galactic cosmic rays are very
high-energy particles from sources beyond our
solar system. Together, the radiation exposure from these sources is
expected to be comparable to a 1-month stay on the International Space Station,
or about 5% of an astronaut’s career limit. Any exposure from solar
radiation events would add to this baseline.
The Moon to Mars Space Weather Analysis
Office, based at NASA Goddard, continuously assesses solar activity and any
eruptions that occur. The team shares its analysis with the Space Radiation
Analysis Group, based at NASA’s Johnson Space Center in Houston. Together,
their forecasts and those from NOAA’s Space Weather Prediction Center,
plus real-time measurements from
inside the Orion spacecraft will inform recommendations for
the flight control team.
