When four astronauts flew around the Moon in April, they spent hours at the windows describing what they saw. Now everything they recorded belongs to the public. NASA has announced that the full lunar science dataset from Artemis II has been published through its Planetary Data System, the agency’s open archive for planetary missions.
The release runs to more than 800 gigabytes. It includes over 11,000 full-resolution images and videos taken with the crew’s handheld cameras and those on the Orion spacecraft, pictures annotated by the astronauts, and eight and a half hours of audio in which Reid Wiseman, Victor Glover, Christina Koch and Jeremy Hansen talk through the lunar surface as it passed below. Among their notes are brief flashes on the unlit part of the Moon, made by objects striking the surface.
NASA describes it as the first planetary science dataset gathered mainly by people in more than half a century. Three companion reports explain how to use it, and the material is already helping shape plans for Artemis III and the missions beyond.
Source: NASA