science
Artemis II Mission Loses Contact with Earth During Lunar Flyby After Capturing Earth View
NASA photographed Earth partially hidden by the Moon through the Orion spacecraft window during the Artemis II mission on April 6, 2026. Industry leaders predict humans living on the Moon by the end of the 2020s amid growing investments and U.S. budget requests for space. SpaceX and Blue Origin are advancing lunar presence plans.
Apr 24, 1:30 AM·1m read1 source
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M. EDT (22:41 GMT) on April 6, 2026. This occurred three minutes before the Orion spacecraft and its crew went behind the Moon and lost contact with Earth for 40 minutes during the Artemis II crew’s flyby of the Moon.
People will be living and working on the Moon within the next decade, according to Dylan Taylor. We'll have humans on the Moon by the end of the 2020s, and we'll have some lunar base — it'll probably be an inflatable habitat with some life support, said Dylan Taylor.
Deeper into the 2030s, 2032, 2033, you'll be able to sit on your porch in upstate New York and look at the Moon, and there'll be lights on the Moon, because there'll be people living and working on the Moon, said Dylan Taylor. Dylan Taylor spoke on a panel at CNBC's CONVERGE LIVE in Singapore on Thursday.
Is by far the global leader in commercial space, according to Dave Cavossa. Elon Musk's SpaceX is courting analysts this week ahead of plans for an IPO. SpaceX is now focused on building a self-growing city on the Moon, which could happen in under 10 years according to Elon Musk in a February social media post.
Blue Origin announced in January that it would pause its suborbital space tourism flights to focus on establishing a permanent, sustained lunar presence. On April 3, the U.S. President asked Congress to boost defense spending to $1.5 trillion, and on April 21, the U.S. Air Force and Space Force requested a budget of more than $300 billion for the 2027 fiscal year.
Low Earth Orbit, defined by NASA as the stretch of space at an altitude of 2,000 km or less, attracted more than $45 billion worth of investment in 2025, up from $25 billion in 2024.
