- Artemis II team reports Microsoft software issue
- An astronaut in control of the mission that none of his perspectives were working.
- There is no evidence that the problem has affected the mission in any significant way.
Artemis Mission Control, we have a problem, and it’s one that almost all Microsoft customers can relate to. Just hours after the spectacular launch of Artemis II, which kicked off NASA’s first lunar mission in more than 50 years, astronauts reported a Microsoft 365 technology issue.
As the four crew members flew at 4,275 mph and more than 30,000 miles from Earth, they remained in almost constant contact with NASA Mission Control. During one conversation, an astronaut on the mission offered this report: “I have two Microsoft Outlooks and neither of them work.”
First, you can be forgiven for being surprised that the Orion spacecraft (which was carried into space by the Artemis II mission) uses Microsoft 365 software. However, NASA has been standardizing on Microsoft’s suite of software and services for years, using the platform for productivity, collaboration and, yes, communication. He The agency even uses Copilot, although it is unclear if AI has played any role in this mission.
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Yeah… In case anyone was wondering, Microsoft still sucks at space. pic.twitter.com/vf5b0lQgc7April 2, 2026
Things are happening in a very peculiar way.
Back to the non-life-threatening situation on the spaceship…
The astronaut asks if NASA wants to “go in remotely and check out Optimus and those two Outlooks, that would be great.”
Mission Control detects the problem and responds, “We’ll join your PCD and let you know when we’re done.”
The reference to “Optimus”, by the way, referred to a separate topic. The astronaut mentioned the two Outlooks as another glitch to check while they’re there.
A PCD is a “personal computing device,” which we assume will be a Windows laptop or Surface computer (we assume you’re using those along with their iPhones) and yes, just like in-home tech support, the technician uses remote access to fix the problem.
As for why there can be “two Microsoft Outlooks” on one device, Microsoft can be blamed. A couple of years ago, Microsoft introduced the Outlook app for Windows, essentially a rebrand of the original Windows Mail app. Once installed, that app simply becomes “Outlook.” But Microsoft 365 customers know that there is already an “Outlook” in the 365 Office suite. So yes, a Windows system could have “two Microsoft Outlooks”.
It’s unclear why neither of them were working on one of the Artemis II mission’s computers, although neither Mission Control nor the astronaut seemed particularly concerned. After all, NASA uses Outlook for some communications between itself and astronauts, but not all communications, as evidenced by the audio.
The exchange was captured in the early morning hours of April 2 (and witnessed by tens of thousands because NASA is live-streaming the entire mission on YouTube), still quite early in the flight, which launched about eight hours earlier from the Kennedy Space Center in Florida.
At this point, we assume that the systems have rebooted and that both Outlooks are nominally running. Of course, we’re sure the Artemis II team is as eager as you are to have just one Outlook, and one that will work for the duration of this historic mission.
We’ve reached out to Microsoft for comment and will update this post with their response.
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