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Patrick Crowley

Artemis Watch

A better Artemis II tracker, fully 3D and built on real-time data from NASA JPL.

Artemis Watch following Orion toward the Moon, with the mission clock, distances, and phase in the corner
Orion closing in on the Moon, four and a half days into the mission.
The overview camera showing Orion’s full path from Earth to the Moon and back, inside the Moon’s orbit
The overview shows Orion’s whole path to the Moon and back.
Orion in high Earth orbit, with Earth behind it and its orbit drawn around the planet
Orion in high Earth orbit, half a day after launch.
Orion heading out along its trajectory, with the Moon small in the distance
The Orion camera frames the Moon on the way out.
Orion approaching the dark far side of the Moon
The flyby camera follows Orion as it swings past the far side of the Moon.
A close-up of Orion’s capsule, with a photo of a woman looking out of the window
Press B for a close-up of the capsule window, with my daughter’s first grade teacher looking out.
Earth at splashdown, surrounded by colorful fireworks
Fireworks at splashdown.

Artemis II was NASA’s first crewed mission around the Moon in more than fifty years. I wanted to follow it with my daughter, and NASA’s official tracker was too simple and awkward to use. So I built my own.

Artemis Watch shows Earth, the Moon, and Orion in 3D, using trajectory data from NASA JPL’s Horizons system. A mission clock tracks elapsed time, distances, and the current phase. You can jump the camera to Earth, the Moon, Orion, or the flyby, and scrub the whole mission at up to 25,000× speed.

The Sun moves over the course of the mission, so the Moon’s phase shifts from full at launch to third quarter by splashdown. The Orion camera changes with each phase of the flight, framing the Moon on the way out and Earth on the way home. And the trajectory changes color at the lunar flyby, from cyan on the outbound leg to orange on the return.

I aimed for accuracy wherever I could, and allowed myself to cheat a little where that made it easier to understand or more fun to watch. There are a few surprises, too, like fireworks at splashdown and a hidden close-up of Orion’s window with my daughter’s first grade teacher looking out.