Even on the way to the Moon, Outlook can still ruin your day. The Associated Press says the four Artemis II crew members are crammed together for 10 days, with two Microsoft Outlooks making life worse.
Nasa commander Reid Wiseman fired off a literal “Houston, we have a problem” message to mission control in the early hours of Thursday. He wanted tech support for internet connectivity on a PCD, a personal computing device, which is a Microsoft Surface Pro.
Wiseman tried turning the device off and on again before calling for help, but it did not fix the problem. NASA noticed that the PCD was connected to a network and requested permission to remotely connect to troubleshoot a problem with the Optimus software.
Wiseman responded, “I also see that I have two Microsoft Outlooks and neither one of those is working,” per a clip shared by Niki Grayson on Bluesky. “If you wanna remote in and check Optimus and those two Outlooks, that would be awesome,” Wiseman said.
The AP writer scrubbed through some of NASA’s livestreamed comms with Orion and did not hear any resolution. Engadget has contacted NASA for comment, presumably while someone hunted for the space-rated equivalent of an IT helpdesk shrug.
Tablet trouble is not the biggest hassle so far, because the crew reported an issue with a fan in the toilet that handles urine collection. Orion has contingency urinal bags, but the fan problem was fixed within a few hours.
Outlook, though, is the sort of misery that unites astronauts and office workers in shared despair. Here’s hoping nobody suggests Teams.
