Marcia Dunn
Updated ,first published
Cape Canaveral, Florida: NASA’s Artemis II astronauts fired their engines and blasted toward the moon Thursday night (Florida time), leaving behind the chains that have trapped humanity in poor orbits around Earth in the decades since Apollo.
The so-called translunar injection came 25 hours after liftoff, putting three Americans and a Canadian on track to fly to the moon early next week. Their Orion capsule left orbit directly around the Earth and followed the moon for nearly 400,000 km.
“Ladies and gentlemen, I am very pleased to be able to tell you that for the first time since 1972 during Apollo 17, humans have left Earth’s orbit,” NASA’s Lori Glaze announced at a press conference.
The engine throw was flawless, he noted.
Canadian astronaut Jeremy Hansen said he and his colleagues were glued to the capsule’s windows as they went. left Earth in the rearview mirrortake the “amazing” view. Their faces were so pressed against the windows that they had to be wiped.
“Humanity has once again shown what we are capable of, and it is your hope for the future that carries us now on this journey around the moon,” Hansen said.
On Friday morning (US time), NASA shared a new image of Earth taken by Commander Reid Wiseman from the window of the Orion capsule after completing the injection of the lunar probe.
“There are two auroras (upper right and lower left) and the zodiacal light (lower right) seen when the Earth covers the sun,” NASA said.
NASA allowed the Artemis II crew to stay close to home for a day to test their life support systems before removing them for a lunar departure.
Now committed to the moon, the Artemis II test flight is the opening step in NASA’s grand plans the base of the moon and the continuous life of the moon.
Wiseman, pilot Victor Glover, Christina Koch and Hansen will speed past the moon then hang a U-turn and zip straight home without stopping on land. In the process, they will become the furthest humans have ever traveled from Earth, breaking the distance record set by Apollo 13 in 1970. They may also be the fastest during the final re-entry flight on April 10.
Glover, Koch and Hansen have already made history as the first person of color, the first woman and the first non-American, respectively, to land on the moon. The 24 Apollo moonwalkers were all white.
To set the mood for the main event of the day, Mission Control woke up the crew with John Legend Green Light featuring Andre 3000 and a medley of NASA teams cheering. “We’re ready to go,” Glover said.
Mission Control gave the final go-ahead just minutes before the main engines fired, telling the astronauts that they were starting a “human repatriation network” to bring them back to Earth. The capsule relies on the weight of the Earth and the moon – called the lunar free-return trajectory – to complete the return journey with the eighth loop. The engine increased the speed of their capsule to over 38,000km/h to propel them. outside the earth’s orbit.
“With this lunar burn, we are not leaving Earth. We are choosing,” Koch said.
Flight director Judd Frieling said he and his team were all business while at work but would probably reflect on the importance of it all once they got home. “I suspect everyone understands that this is a once-in-a-lifetime moment,” he told reporters.
The next major step will be Monday’s lunar leap.
Orion will zoom 6,400 kilometers past the moon before turning back, providing unprecedented and brilliant views of the moon. the far side of the moonat least to human eyes. The universe will treat the Artemis II astronauts to a total solar eclipse as the moon temporarily blocks the sun from their view.
As they waited to leave orbit early Thursday, the astronauts enjoyed views of Earth from tens of thousands of miles up. Koch told Mission Control that they could know all the coastlines of the continents and even the South Pole, his old stomping ground.
NASA is counting on the test flight to launch the entire Artemis program and lead to a moon landing with two astronauts in 2028.
The so-called moon loop may require some design modifications, however.
Orion’s toilet was immediately damaged The Artemis crew reached orbit Wednesday evening. Mission Control guided astronaut Koch through plumbing techniques and eventually succeeded, but not before having to use emergency urine storage bags.
Urinary bladders do double duty. Mission Control ordered the crew to fill a stack of empty bags with water from the capsule’s palm on Thursday. The problem with the valve arose after the palm lifted, and NASA wanted plenty of drinking water for the crew in case the problem recurred. Astronauts used straws and needles to fill more than 7 liters worth of bags before heading to the moon.
AP
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