An attempt to contextualize the photography of the Artemis II mission chronologically, in space, and with other media including video and audio from the mission as well as the crew activity schedule. Real-time trajectory visualization, distance from Earth and Moon, and photography metadata.
Live site: ArtemisTimeline.com
The entire site is two HTML files and a data file — no build step, no framework, no dependencies. Media files (photos and audio) are served from Cloudflare R2; only the code and metadata live in this repo.
index.html The viewer — CSS, HTML, and JS in one self-contained file
photos.js All photo/audio metadata (titles, timestamps, camera info)
admin.html Visual editor for photos.js (toggle entries, edit metadata, export)
faq.html Frequently asked questions
Images and audio are hosted on Cloudflare R2 and referenced via MEDIA_BASE at the top of index.html. To run locally with your own copies, set MEDIA_BASE = '' and place files in web/ and audio/ directories.
- Create a 1600px-wide web version of your image:
convert original.jpg -resize 1600x -quality 85 web/filename.jpg - Upload it to the
web/folder in the R2 bucket (via the Cloudflare dashboard orwrangler r2 object put artemistimeline/web/filename.jpg --file=web/filename.jpg). - Open
admin.htmlin your browser and click + Add Photo. - Fill in the filename, timestamp, photographer, camera info, etc. The entry will sort into chronological position automatically.
- Click Export photos.js to download the updated data file.
- Replace
photos.jswith the exported version and deploy.
Every timestamp in the system is Eastern Daylight Time (EDT / UTC-4). If your photo's EXIF data is in a different timezone, you'll need to convert it. The cameras used for this mission were set to at least 6 different timezones (EDT, PDT, HST, CET, UTC+4, UTC), so always cross-reference against known mission events:
- Liftoff: April 1, 2026 at 18:35:25 EDT
- Splashdown: April 10, 2026 at 20:07:27 EDT
The viewer identifies photos by filename patterns:
55182417729_3e6cb18922_o.jpg— Flickr (11-digit ID)9608627.jpg— DVIDS / Navy (7-digit ID)art002e014256~large.jpg— NASA art-seriesKSC-20260401-PH-KLS01_0013.jpg— Kennedy Space CenterNHQ202604100032.jpg— NASA Headquarters photographerig-*.mp4/yt-*.jpg— Instagram / YouTube embeds
- Photo metadata: NASA Flickr, DVIDS, NASA Image Gallery
- Flight trajectory: JPL Horizons API (target -1024, center Earth 399)
- Crew schedule: NASA's Artemis II Overview Timeline PDF
- Mission audio: NASA livestream recordings
Open admin.html to browse and edit the photo database. You can search, filter by status (enabled/disabled/videos/crew photos), toggle individual entries on and off, and edit all metadata fields. Changes are exported as a new photos.js file.
Claude Code with Opus 4.6. JPL Horizons API for flight data. Flickr API for pulling image descriptions.
The code is released under the MIT License. NASA imagery is generally not subject to U.S. copyright and is made available under NASA's Media Usage Guidelines. U.S. Navy imagery is public domain per DoD Visual Information policy.