Artemis II sets new record as astronauts travel farther from Earth than ever before | Artemis II

Artemis II astronauts broke Apollo 13’s distance record at 1:57 p.m. Eastern time Monday, making history as the first four humans to travel farther from Earth than anyone before them, hugging each other in the cramped capsule.

Before setting the record, the four dimmed the lights in their capsule and positioned themselves near the windows to prepare to break the long-distance record as they flew non-stop past the moon; After all, they also had plans to turn towards planet Earth.

“I’m confused by what you can see from the moon with the naked eye right now,” Canadian astronaut Jeremy Hansen radioed before the flyby. “This is truly incredible.”

He challenged “this generation and the next to make sure this record doesn’t last long.”

Astronauts – Reid Wiseman, Victor Glover and Christina Koch from the US space agency NASA; and the Canadian Space Agency’s Hansen — will travel 5,000 miles (8,000 km) beyond the moon, the furthest distance from Earth, surpassing the distance record set by the ill-fated Apollo 13 in 1970.

They were instructed to make observations of Earth’s only moon to prepare descriptions and audio recordings and situation reports about “how the crew was positioned, missed targets, anything unexpected they saw, lunar target descriptions, and their feelings and reactions as they passed the moon.”

The astronauts on the emergency flight in 1970 (commander Jim Lovell, Fred Haise and Jack Swigert) reached a maximum of 248,655 miles from Earth before returning. Artemis’ crew must exceed Apollo 13’s mission by approximately 4,000 miles.

Monday’s nearly six-hour flyby of the Orion capsule, on the sixth day of a lunar mission that has revived NASA’s space exploration program, promises views of the far side of the moon that were too dark or too difficult to see for Apollo program astronauts more than half a century before them.

A total solar eclipse also awaited them, in which the Moon blocked the sun and revealed glowing corona particles. “We’ll set our sights on the moon, map it, and then keep going back,” flight director Judd Frieling said.

Koch recently said that he and his Artemis II crewmates did not live with superiority, but that it was an important milestone “that people can understand and ponder,” connecting the past with the present and even the future when new records are set.

While behind the moon, Orion would lose contact with mission control for 40 minutes. NASA is relying on the Deep Space Network to communicate with the crew, but the giant antennas in California, Spain and Australia won’t have direct line of sight.

These communications blackouts were always a tense time during the Apollo missions, but as Frieling points out, “physics is taking over, and physics will definitely get us back to the front of the moon.”

During the flight, the astronauts took turns capturing moon views from their windows and planned to do so. According to NASA’s Artemis II lunar science geologist Kelsey Young, we can reveal “certain parts of the far side that have never been seen before” by humans.

“I’m really, really looking forward to seeing the Moon a little bit closer to home on Monday,” he said over the weekend.

NASA administrator Jared Isaacman told CBS News’ Face the Nation on Sunday that Artemis II astronauts “certainly had observation responsibilities” during the flight.

“They have a number of different cameras; they’ll get data from that,” he said, adding that this will help future missions, including those aiming to return to the lunar surface. “They actually had the opportunity to train for this mission for three and a half years, working with our scientists on the information they most wanted to collect about the far side of the moon.”

After the capsule orbits the Moon, it will take four days to return to Earth. NASA is aiming for a splashdown in the Pacific Ocean near San Diego on April 10, nine days after its launch in Florida.

Young said the Artemis II crew will scout potential landing sites for future missions, including the mysterious Reiner Gamma formation, a bright lunar vortex associated with a local magnetic anomaly, and photograph Mercury, Venus, Mars and Saturn at sunrise and sunset.

Also, they will try to recreate it. worldrise The photo taken by astronaut William Anders from lunar orbit during the Apollo 8 mission on December 24, 1968 is considered an inspiration for the environmental movement. There are hopes that the new photo may have the same unifying effect as the original photo.

On Sunday, a CBS News reporter asked mission pilot Glover if he wanted to share any thoughts about Easter.

Glover answered in part: “Inside all this space – this pile of nothingness, this thing we call the universe – you have this oasis, this beautiful place. [on Earth] It allows us to exist together.

“Whether you believe in God or not, this is an opportunity for us to remember where we are, who we are, we are the same thing, and we need to get through this together.”