this post was submitted on 02 Apr 2026
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The article leaves out that this was on Commander Wiseman's personal tablet, a Microsoft Surface Pro and not any device associated with the mission.
The 'Two Microsoft Outlooks' was a description of the issue he was having. The headline is implying that there are two machines running Outlook that don't work.
The source of the quotes and a better article:
https://www.engadget.com/computing/artemis-ii-crew-is-just-like-us-needs-help-with-microsoft-outlook-issues-145230968.html
Why is NASA remotely connecting to the tablet if it is a personal device?
'cuz they can't very well send someone over.
On a more serious note: that's just the easiest way to go about it? I wouldn't let my boss remote into my personal machine, but if I were to take it on a mission to the moon that'd be a bit different.
I guess I should have said 'and not on any device required for the mission'. The PCDs are personal devices for the individual's business and convenience.
They are for things like e-mailing, looking at mission manuals and accessing the Internet. They're not involved in the operation of the Integrity. All of the mission-critical systems that operate the ship are purpose-built.
But NASA doesn't need to re-invent the wheel when it comes to e-mail and PDF reading, so they buy commercial hardware because it's way cheaper, it works well enough and if it fails it doesn't compromise the mission.
That makes a lot more sense. When I was reading PCD I was thinking about a private device, even if they don't have much space and even less time I was thinking that they might bring a few small private things. Like a photo of their family, maybe a book etc.
On the ISS missions the astronauts have a weight allowance that they're allowed to take. It may be the same case here.
How fast is their internet connection? I didn't expect them to be able to "remote in", I thought the latency would be awful
In Earth orbit, there would be little latency. Starlink operates at ~500km and latency on that network is around 50ms. 'Traditional' internet satellites are in geosync orbit which is around 35,000 km, their latency is in the 250ms range.
At TLI (Translunar Injection) burn they were at 185km. They would have been a bit higher when the problem happened but their apogee was 2,600km, so they were somewhere in the 50-100ms range
They use the TDRS for data, it has a capacity of around 800Mbps but that is shared with the ISS.
So, their Internet connection is probably better than people using cellular data or Starlink. At the moon it'll be in the 2500ms range.
They're testing an optical system that would allow for much higher bandwidth, in the 100s of Gbps. The hardware that they're carrying will only do about 250Mbps but there are optical tricks they can do to increase that significantly once they confirm the base system works.
This is so interesting, thanks for sharing! :)
It is incredibly cool.
According g to google
So, worst case scenario is about 2.5 seconds of latency. That's doable for tech support, I guess.
And being that it's a personal device that they can't get either version of their own personal outlook to work, the fix will likely be having their spouse reset the password here on earth and tell them the new password because they likely forgot it. Otherwise you'd just tell them to use webmail until they got back, no point in fucking around with a locally installed product on a personal device when they will be back in less than 10 days
They can stop by a satellite and plug in /j
Email doesn't care too much about latency. It'll get there when it gets there.