A very modern space problem

During Artemis II’s trip toward the Moon on Thursday, commander Reid Wiseman ran into a glitch that will feel familiar to anyone who has ever begged a laptop to cooperate: Microsoft Outlook stopped working.

In a moment captured during NASA’s Artemis livestream and later shared on Bluesky, Wiseman told Mission Control, “I also see that I have two Microsoft Outlooks and neither one of those are working.”

Because even a Moon mission cannot escape desktop software, Mission Control had to remotely access Wiseman’s personal computing device, a Microsoft Surface Pro, to sort it out.

NASA says the fix was routine

At a press conference on Thursday, Artemis flight director Judd Frieling said the issue had been resolved.

“This is not uncommon. We have this on-station all the time. You know, sometimes Outlook has issues getting configured, especially when you don’t have a network that’s directly connected. And so essentially we just had to reload his files on Outlook to get it working,” Frieling said.

NASA relies on a mix of the Near Space Network and Deep Space Network to communicate with Artemis II, using satellites in orbit and antennas around the world. As the spacecraft moves farther from Earth, Mission Control at NASA’s Johnson Space Center in Houston has to shift between those systems to keep the connection alive. Science fiction has not yet managed to make networking simple.

The crew’s gear list is not just for emergencies

The Surface Pro was not the only technology on board. Artemis II crew members also have:

  • Nikon D5 DSLR cameras
  • A ZCube video encoder
  • Handheld GoPro cameras

Those cameras are part of content capture for a Disney and National Geographic documentary.

The crew was also allowed to bring their phones, and NASA’s livestream showed them being stowed in the astronauts’ spacesuit pockets. Which is comforting, in a way. Even when you are heading for the Moon, there is still a place for a pocket-sized device you cannot quite trust.