Artemis crew reaches the moon, approaches record-breaking distance from Earth
By Joey Roulette
HOUSTON, Texas April 6 (Reuters) – Four astronauts of NASA’s Artemis II mission entered the moon’s gravitational domain early on Monday morning and soon found themselves on the moon’s shadowy far side, traveling along a path that would become the farthest people in history.
The Artemis II crew, who have been flying in the Orion capsule since launch from Florida last week, were awakened around 10:50 a.m. ET on the sixth flight day by a recorded message from Apollo 8 and 13 astronaut Jim Lovell.
“Welcome to my old neighborhood,” said Lovell, who died last year at the age of 97. “This is a historic day and I know how busy you will be, but don’t forget to enjoy the view… good luck and God willing.”
NASA astronauts Reid Wiseman, Victor Glover and Christina Koch and Canadian astronaut Jeremy Hansen will reach maximum distance from Earth at roughly 252,760 miles by 7:07 p.m. (2307 GMT), approximately 4,105 miles (6,606 km) beyond the record held by Lovell and the Apollo 13 crew for 56 years.
As they approach the distance record, they will sail around the far side of the moon and witness the moon’s dark surface dwarf what will appear as a basketball-sized Earth in the distant background from nearly 4,000 miles above.
This milestone is the culmination of the approximately 10-day Artemis II mission, the first crewed test flight of NASA’s Artemis program.
A series of multibillion-dollar missions aim to return astronauts to the lunar surface before China by 2028, establishing a long-term U.S. presence there over the next decade and building a lunar base that will serve as a testing ground for potential future missions to Mars.
The Moon flyby, which will officially begin at 2:34 PM ET (1834 GMT), will plunge the crew into darkness and brief communications blackouts as the moon blocks them from NASA’s Deep Space Network, a global array of massive radio communications antennas that the agency uses to talk to crews.
The flight will last about six hours, during which time astronauts will use professional cameras to take detailed photographs of the moon from Orion’s window, showing a rare and scientifically valuable vantage point of sunlight filtering around its edges.
The crew will also have the chance to photograph a rare moment when their home planet, eclipsed by its record-breaking distance through space, will set and rise with the lunar horizon as it rotates, a celestial remix of a moonrise as seen from Earth.
Positioned in the Science Evaluation Room at NASA’s Johnson Space Center in Houston, a team of dozens of lunar scientists will take notes as astronauts studying a series of lunar events as part of mission training recount their views in real time.
(Reporting by Joey Roulette; Editing by Don Durfee, Aurora Ellis and Bill Berkrot)
