Astronauts of NASA’s Artemis mission completed their final preparations on Saturday for entering the Moon’s orbit. The crew, consisting of Americans Reid Wiseman, Christina Koch, Victor Glover, and Canadian Jeremy Hansen, reviewed imaging and analysis tasks for lunar surface features. At the start of their workday, they were about 169,000 miles from Earth and 110,700 miles from the Moon. The next key phase, entering the Moon’s gravitational sphere, is expected between Sunday and Monday night.

NASA reported that the Orion spacecraft’s crew began their day with breakfast and music, maintaining high morale. Glover was scheduled to conduct manual piloting tests to provide NASA with additional data on deep-space performance. The astronauts also reviewed checklists for documenting their lunar flyby experience and continued photographing geological formations such as lava flows and craters.

The Artemis-2 mission is part of NASA’s long-term plan to return humans to the Moon and establish a permanent base for future deep-space research. NASA officials described the mission as a learning experience, marking the first time a crewed spacecraft is operating in deep space in decades.