Concept · self-initiated Design concept · scroll animation
Artemis II
A nine-day lunar mission, steered with the scroll wheel. A self-initiated concept showing what animation in the browser can do today.
Overview
In April 2026, Artemis II flew four people around the Moon and back. For this concept I reconstructed the mission as one continuous scroll animation: scrolling drives the mission clock. Every distance, every time stamp and every position on screen comes from NASA’s real navigation data, and the launch sequence from real NASA slow motion. Research, design and development are mine.
- Services
- Concept & researchUI/UX designWebGL developmentMotion design
- Year
- 2026
- Status
- Concept · self-initiated
- Tools & tech
- Three.jsWebGL / GLSLGSAPLenisNASA/JPL HorizonsHiggsfieldAgentic Coding
Real data instead of animation by feel
The trajectory comes as a vector dataset from NASA/JPL Horizons, recorded by NASA navigation in Houston, one position every five minutes. From it the page computes where Orion, Earth, Moon and Sun are at every moment. The telemetry at the edge is therefore not decoration: it shows the actual distance to Earth and to the Moon and the velocity at exactly that mission time, down to the roughly 40 minutes of radio silence behind the Moon.
The crew’s photos, recreated
Two of the mission’s best-known photos are dated to the second and their focal length is known. At that moment the reconstruction’s camera sits at Orion’s position and uses the same field of view. At Earthset, 22:41:37 UTC, the Earth fills a third of the frame width just like in the original, with the lit side on the left. Then the original photo fades in over the reconstruction.
Technology
Three.js with custom shaders: Earth with atmospheric scattering, city lights and sun glint on the water, the Moon with LRO maps and relief from the LOLA laser, 9,096 stars from the Yale catalogue and the Milky Way from NASA data. The Orion model is built from published dimensions, its solar arrays track the Sun. For the re-entry, of which no exterior footage exists, a clearly labelled AI visualisation is used. Anyone with reduced motion enabled gets calm still frames.
What makes this project special.
Scrolling drives time
Nine days of mission in one continuous camera move.
Real trajectory data
Orion, Moon and Sun from NASA/JPL Horizons.
Photo matching
Crew photos recreated with time and focal length.
Real launch footage
Launch sequence from NASA slow motion, frame by frame on the scroll wheel.
From the reconstruction
Scroll through it.
↳ Scroll inside the frame
