Why will today’s lunar flyby only beam back low-resolution video?

An exaggerated, pixelated version of a photo of the moon taken by an Artemis II crew member at the fourth day of the mission. Oriented with the South Pole at the top and beginning to see parts of the lunar far side, the pixellation simulates the low-res video feed that the hi-res can be distributed. Credit: NASA/collectSPACE.com

Humanity is about to get its first in-person, up-close look at the Moon in more than half a century.

Four astronauts will spend about seven hours on Monday (April 6) observing the far side of the Moon, the half that constantly points away from Earth. At their closest approach on board their Orion spacecraft Integrity, Reid Wiseman, Victor Glover, and Christina Koch of NASA and Jeremy Hansen with the Canadian Space Agency will be about 4,000 miles (6,400 km) above the surface. The last time any person came that ...