Star Signal Solutions Inc. successfully captured optical images of the Orion spacecraft from NASA’s Artemis II mission from Japan on April 3, 2026.
At the time of observation, the target was located at a distance of approximately 160,000 km from the center of the Earth, and was optically detected along its translunar trajectory.
The observation was conducted based on pre-determined orbital information, and the object was identified as the Orion spacecraft through consistency between the observed time, line-of-sight direction, and predicted position.
Artemis II is a historic mission marking humanity’s return to the vicinity of the Moon for the first time in nearly half a century. This observation demonstrates that our optical observation and analysis capabilities extend beyond low Earth orbit and are applicable to tracking space objects in the cislunar domain.
