Artemis flight director Judd Frieling confirms that the Microsoft Outlook issue has been resolved.
On Thursday, during Artemis II’s journey to the Moon, commander Reid Wiseman encountered a tech issue familiar to many: Microsoft Outlook malfunctioned. Captured in NASA’s Artemis livestream and shared on Bluesky, Wiseman informed Mission Control, “I also see that I have two Microsoft Outlooks and neither one of those are working.”
To address the problem, Mission Control remotely accessed Wiseman’s personal computing device, a Microsoft Surface Pro. During a press conference on Thursday, Artemis flight director Judd Frieling stated that NASA had fixed the issue, noting, “This is not uncommon. We have this on-station all the time. Sometimes Outlook has issues configuring, especially without a directly connected network. We essentially had to reload his files on Outlook to resolve it.”
NASA uses its Near Space Network and Deep Space Network to maintain communication with Artemis II, utilizing a mix of global antennas and orbiting satellites. Mission Control at the Johnson Space Center in Houston, Texas must switch communications between these networks as Artemis II travels further from Earth.
Besides the Microsoft Surface Pro, the Artemis II crew’s equipment includes Nikon D5 DSLR cameras, a ZCube video encoder, and handheld GoPro cameras for a Disney/National Geographic documentary. The crew was also allowed to bring their phones, which can be seen stowed in their spacesuit pockets in NASA’s livestream.