Artemis II crew prepares for lunar flyby
After spending five days in space, farther from Earth than any human before them, NASA’s Artemis II crew is preparing for an eventful six-hour flight to the moon.
At approximately 11 a.m. Pacific time, the crew will reach another milestone: More than 248,655 miles from our pale blue dot, no human will have ever traveled that far from our home planet.
The previous record holders were the Apollo 13 astronauts who accidentally placed the mark. The oxygen tank on the spacecraft exploded Shortly after reaching space, they forced them to slingshot around the moon before landing.
On next few hoursThe crew will begin observing the far side of the moon. As the near side of our natural satellite is constantly locked facing Earth in an endless staring contest, its far side has been imaged many times with space-based telescopes and sensors, but rarely with the naked human eye.
At approximately 3:45 p.m. Pacific time — about an hour after the crew’s lunar observations began — NASA expects the spacecraft to lose communication with Earth for about 40 minutes as it passes behind the moon. During this Earth eclipse, crew members will reach their closest point to the moon at approximately 4,070 miles, and the moon will appear the size of a basketball held at arm’s length. Soon, crew members will reach the farthest point from Earth, approximately 252,760 miles away.
The crew will then experience the birth of a world; will see our home planet rise above the moon’s horizon, Commemorated with a famous photo When the Apollo 8 crew received a signal from mission control – at approximately 4:25 PM Pacific time.
At around 5:35 p.m. Pacific time, it will be the sun’s turn to be eclipsed by the moon as the spacecraft plunges into the darkness of the moon’s shadow for an hour.
NASA is broadcasting the flight live on the internet. YouTube, X, netflix And HBO Maximum.
The Artemis II mission is one of a series of international efforts led by NASA to return humans to the lunar surface for the first time in more than half a century.
In 2022, Artemis I flew past the moon without a crew to test the vehicle. Artemis II is primarily focused on assessing life support systems. Earth-orbiting Artemis III aims to test docking procedures with SpaceX’s and Blue Origin’s lunar landers next year, and Artemis IV, planned for 2028, hopes to put boots on the dusty lunar surface.
After Wednesday’s powerful liftoff, Artemis II’s journey to the moon has been as ordinary as a deep space mission can be.
The crew spent some time troubleshooting the restroom, with NASA astronaut and Artemis II mission specialist Christina Koch proudly embracing the title of “”.space plumber.” The team suspected that a vent was frozen, so they warmed it by slowly turning the ship so that the vent was facing the sun.
At another point, NASA astronaut and Artemis II commander Reid Wiseman called NASA’s field IT experts back to Earth to inform them that both versions of Microsoft’s Outlook email program installed on his computer were not working.
The crew’s back-and-forth about mission control included a complaint that mission control was frustratingly out of whack after Chappell played Roan’s Pink Pony Club to wake up the crew. Cut the song right before the chorus. The crew also called mission control to ask if they could see the spacecraft moving as Wiseman exercised on the flywheel, rocking the ship (both agreed that this was not a problem).
After the moon flyby, the crew has another four days of (hopefully) mundane travel before a high-energy re-entry and splashdown off the coast of San Diego on Friday.
