Some of Artemis II's most iconic photos are being taken with a 12-year-old GoPro HERO4 Black

NASA's Artemis II mission is producing some of its most iconic imagery via modified GoPro HERO4 Black cameras — hardware that first went on sale in October 2014.

While we wait to see what new cameras GoPro has developed based on its new GP3 processor,  a handful of 12-year-old GoPro HERO4 Blacks are capturing probably the most iconic photos that GoPro has ever been associated with.

News that GoPro cameras were part of the Artemis II mission manifest broke before the launch of the mission on April 1. GoPro confirmed this itself in a press statement released on April 2 and followed it up with an Instagram post April 7.

Modified GoPro cameras are mounted externally on the Orion spacecraft's solar array wings. These appear to be separate from the internal cameras being used by the crew to assemble material for National Geographic's Return to the Moon project, which is probably why we know a little more about them.

HERO4 Black confirmed

The Artemis II crew is en route to the Moon on the second flight day of the mission. This photo shows the Orion spacecraft with the Moon in the distance, as captured by a camera on the tip of one of its solar array wings. Credit: NASA

While GoPro does not identify which models they are, EXIF data from NASA's Flickr stream confirms that they are ruggedized (extremely ruggedized) HERO4 Blacks.

We speculated, given the age of the Nikon D5 taking many of the leading shots from the mission, that GoPros heading into space would be HERO5s. We were a model out. The HERO4 was released in October 2014, and you can sort of understand why GoPro left that crucial detail out of its press release.

The GoPro HERO4 series was the first of the company's cameras to support 4K30 recording. This made it a significant step up from its predecessors at the time, which could manage 4K but only at 15 fps.

Orion snapped this high-resolution selfie in space with a camera mounted on one of its solar array wings during a routine external inspection of the spacecraft on the second day into the Artemis II mission. Credit: NASA

Mission photos we're seeing downloaded while it is underway all seem to be from these external cameras. As well as providing beauty shots of Orion as it circles out to the Moon and back, they also provide critical safety data and the ability to check spacecraft integrity ahead of reentry on April 11.

NASA also seems to be able to move the lens of the cameras, though the mechanism to do this is uncertain.

More recent cameras onboard

More recent cameras have made it onto the mission. The Nikon Z9 was included at a late stage on an experimental basis, and the iPhone 17 Pro was included, after NASA "challenged longstanding processes and qualified modern hardware for spaceflight on an expedited timeline," in administrator Jared Isaacman own words.

That's a camera that was on shop shelves roughly six months before launch. By NASA's own historical standards, that's extraordinary. Admittedly they are heavily nerfed and basically stripped down to the camera functions alone, which presumably has enabled NASA to fasttrack the risk assessments.

We're glad they're onboard though, as this pic of NASA astronaut and Artemis II mission specialist Christina Koch taken with its selfie camera is probably our favorite of the whole mission so far: the first woman to head beyond low Earth orbit and see the planet in its entirety.

NASA astronaut and Artemis II mission specialist Christina Koch peers out of one of the Orion spacecraft's main cabin windows, looking back at Earth, as the crew travels towards the Moon. Credit: NASA