The biggest remaining piece of the architecture, therefore, is a lunar lander. Known in NASA parlance as the Human Landing System, or HLS, the space agency has contracted with SpaceX for its Starship vehicle and Blue Origin and it Blue Moon lander.

NASA lost contact with the Artemis 2 crew on Monday evening as the astronauts passed behind the moon.

Artemis II will test NASA’s crew capabilities in deep space and gather more information that could ultimately help send astronauts to Mars.

NASA's Artemis II mission is set to launch Wednesday, sending four astronauts on a 10-day journey around the moon and back to Earth. While the mission will not include a landing, it marks a major step forward in returning humans to deep space.

This marks the first time NASA has allowed each crew member to fly with a personal iPhone for documentation purposes, moving beyond previous limited or unofficial uses of smartphones in space.

In space, nobody can hear you doomscroll.

The Artemis II crew of NASA astronauts Christina Koch, Reid Wiseman, Victor Glover and Canadian Space Agency (CSA) astronaut Jeremy Hansen pose with their eclipse glasses used to protect their eyes for the Orion spacecraft's flyby of the Moon April 6,