Alongside its serious objectives, like testing the Orion capsule in deep space and imaging lava flows on the lunar surface, NASA's Artemis 2 lunar mission has its whimsy, too.

For example, there is a beloved moon toy named "Rise" on the mission serving as a zero-gravity indicator and holding a microchip with the names of space fans who signed up to have their presence enter the lunar arena. There are also the "wakeup songs," a tradition carried on from previous crewed missions. These are exactly what you'd expect. Each day, at the designated wakeup time for the Artemis 2 crew, Mission Control radios in to Orion and plays a short snippet of a song to help them start their day with positivity.

Here are the songs so far:

Flight Day 1: "Sleepyhead" by Young & Sick

Flight Day 2: "Green Light" by John Legend (feat. André 3000)

Flight Day 3: "In a Daydream" by Freddy Jones Band

Flight Day 4: "Pink Pony Club" by Chappell Roan

Flight Day 5: "Working Class Heroes (Work)" by CeeLo Green

Flight Day 6: "Good Morning" by Mandisa, TobyMac

Astronaut wakeup calls go back to the Apollo years. For instance, the Apollo 10 astronauts had the song "It's Nice to Go Trav'ling" by Frank Sinatra as one of their wakeup calls, and Apollo 15 had the theme song from "2001: A Space Odyssey."

The space shuttle program had tons of wakeup calls of their own. For example, STS-134 Pilot Greg Johnson's son chose "Drops of Jupiter" to play for his dad during that 2011 mission — to which Johnson said, "I love that song, and I love being in space," before apologizing for missing his son's birthday. That same mission, the second-to-last of the shuttle program, also had "Il Mio Pensiero," performed by Ligabue for mission specialist Roberto Vittori.

During the final space shuttle mission, STS-135, Pilot Doug Hurley selected Coldplay's "Viva la Vida" to be played (and later picked "Don't Panic" for another day). R.E.M.'s Michael Stipe also personally sent an a capella version of "Man on the Moon" for the crew.

An in-depth list of these wakeup songs can be found in this document, which also features some of the cute and, yes, whimsical banter between astronauts and Mission Control. What a lovely tradition.

Monisha Ravisetti is Space.com's Astronomy Editor. She covers black holes, star explosions, gravitational waves, exoplanet discoveries and other enigmas hidden across the fabric of space and time. Previously, she was a science writer at CNET, and before that, reported for The Academic Times. Prior to becoming a writer, she was an immunology researcher at Weill Cornell Medical Center in New York. She graduated from New York University in 2018 with a B.A. in philosophy, physics and chemistry. She spends too much time playing online chess. Her favorite planet is Earth.