A day into Artemis II’s 10-day journey around the moon — the first such mission in over 50 years — astronauts told Houston they had a problem: They couldn’t open their email.
“I have two Microsoft Outlooks and neither one of those are working,” NASA astronaut and mission commander Reid Wiseman said Thursday during a livestreamed conversation with NASA Mission Control. “If you want to reboot it and check (our software) and those two Outlooks, that would be awesome.”
“Alright, we will join in on your (personal computing device) and let you know when we’re done,” a Mission Control member replied.
Mission Control resolved the glitch for the four astronauts aboard the Orion spacecraft, which took off Wednesday from NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida. The team uses Microsoft’s MS Surface Pro devices as their personal computers, according to a Business Insider report.
A media relations team member for the Washington state-headquartered tech giant on Friday said the matter is under review and that they will share more if they have anything to provide.
Wiseman’s call for IT support was at least the second glitch astronauts have faced since successfully blasting off from planet Earth. After mission specialist Christina Koch reported that the spacecraft’s toilet fan was jammed, Mission Control gave the crew instructions for how to “revive” their toilet, according to Business Insider.
Besides the email and plumbing issues, there have been few bumps so far for Artemis II, whose members include Canadian Space Agency astronaut Jeremy Hansen and NASA astronauts Wiseman, Koch and Victor Glover.
About 27 hours into their journey, Hansen said the crew was “feeling pretty good up here on (their) way to the moon.”
“We just wanted to communicate to everyone around the planet who worked to make Artemis possible that we firmly felt the power of your perseverance,” Hansen said during a livestreamed conversation with Mission Control.
“Humanity has once again shown what we are capable of, and it’s your hopes for the future that carry us now on this journey around the moon.”
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