Deep Dive
Artemis 2: A Week Around the Moon
The Artemis 2 mission launched four astronauts on a week-long journey to the moon. They performed a gravity slingshot around Earth, then flew 250,000 miles to the moon, slingshotted around its dark side within 5,000 miles of the surface—the farthest any humans have ever been from Earth—and splashed down in the ocean. About 45 minutes of the mission were spent behind the moon, completely cut off from Earth. The crew captured footage and photos throughout, including shots of Earth shrinking in the distance as they approached the moon, and the moon growing larger as they approached for the gravity assist.
Why Old Cameras Are the Right Cameras
NASA selected the Nikon D5, a 2016 DSLR, for Artemis 2, prompting confusion online. The reason is pixel pitch—the physical size of each sensor pixel. The D5 has a 6.4-micrometer pitch, meaning fewer but larger pixels that collect more light. In space photography, where the background is almost entirely black, this low-noise performance matters far more than raw megapixel count. The newer Hasselblad 100-megapixel option has much smaller pixels and would produce noisier images. The Nikon Z9 also flew as the flagship option with a 4.35-micrometer pitch and 45.7 megapixels, useful for zooming into details. The reason for using older gear: space programs lock in camera specs years before launch for reliability, and once validated, they won't swap components. A newer model might interact unexpectedly with other systems.
Smartphones and the Rare Eclipse
Artemis 2 marked the first NASA mission where astronauts could bring personal devices—iPhones and Android phones—into space. The photos they took became instantly viral, particularly images of Earth from 250,000 miles away. The standout image was shot on the Nikon Z9 during the dark-side flyby: a two-second exposure of the moon as a silhouette, its crescent lit by Earth's reflected light, with stars and galaxies filling the background. This is the only photograph of a solar eclipse ever taken from behind the moon—a perspective only these four people will ever witness. The astronauts also captured wide-angle shots through the spacecraft windows, showing the frame and the view beyond, which help viewers understand what being in that moment actually felt like.
The Full Camera Kit and NASA's Live Stream
The mission carried 28 cameras total, mounted inside and outside the spacecraft. Beyond the Nikon D5 and Z9, they used a GoPro Hero 4 Black (seven or eight years old at the time of launch) and iPhones with 80-400mm telephoto lenses. NASA uploaded all the original images to its website in near-real time, with only light-speed delay. They maintained constant contact using three Earth-based satellites arranged so at least one always pointed toward the spacecraft. This allowed NASA to live-stream the entire week-long journey to 2.88 million concurrent viewers during the launch. The images are available for download with full metadata, and when processed in Photoshop by setting the black point to zero, they become stunning OLED wallpapers.
The History of Cameras in Space
Nikon became the first camera manufacturer in space when an astronaut simply brought a personal Nikon on a mission before formal partnerships existed. This established a legacy that persists today—NASA has used Nikon cameras since 1971. Hasselblad later became the official space camera supplier, designing pump-action versions of their 500 series because astronauts in space suits cannot operate normal shutter buttons. Hasselblad left some of those cameras on the moon in 1969, taking only the film backs to save weight for the return trip. Twenty years later, Hasselblad made replica models of those original space cameras, producing a thousand units. These pump-action Hasselbdads have only three distance settings—close, medium, far—and hold more film than standard models, making them highly collectible today.