Mike Kelley's 2018 NASA Photographs Gain New Relevance After Artemis II Launch

Architectural photographer Mike Kelley documented NASA's Orion crew capsule and SLS rocket assembly in 2018 at the Michoud Assembly Facility in New Orleans, Louisiana. His images, taken with Canon tilt-shift lenses on a 5DSR DSLR, have taken on fresh meaning following the successful Artemis II mission that carried four astronauts around the Moon. Kelley was selected by NASA alongside a handful of photographers to capture the spacecraft's construction. He approached the facility with his standard architectural methodology, focusing on scale and context rather than dramatic angles. The photographer watched the recent launch from his phone while pulled over on California's 101 freeway. His favorite image from the series shows the incomplete crew capsule with striking colors. Kelley notes that many photos were handheld due to challenging positions inside fuel tanks or on catwalks. The Artemis program's origins trace back over two decades to the canceled Constellation project.