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Astronauts aboard NASA’s Artemis II lunar mission are more than halfway through their historic expedition, during which they will fly by the Moon and push deeper into space than even Apollo astronauts did more than 50 years ago.
Three American astronauts and one Canadian astronaut lifted off from Kennedy Space Centre in Florida on the 1st of April for a nearly 10-day mission, during which they will photograph the mysterious lunar far side as they travel past it.
The mission, humanity’s first trip to the Moon since 1972, is chasing Apollo 13’s record for the farthest distance from Earth. That will make them our planet’s farthest emissaries as they swing around the Moon without stopping on Monday and then hightail it back home.
Their roughly six-hour lunar flyby promises views of the Moon’s far side that were too dark or too difficult to see by the 24 Apollo astronauts who preceded them. A total solar eclipse also awaits them as the Moon blocks the Sun, exposing snippets of shimmering corona.
“We’ll get eyes on the Moon, kind of map it out and then continue to go back in force,” said flight director Judd Frieling. The goal is a Moon base replete with landers, rovers, drones and habitats.
Apollo 13’s astronauts missed out on a Moon landing when one of their oxygen tanks ruptured on the way there in 1970.
With the three lives in jeopardy, Mission Control pivoted to a free-return lunar trajectory to get them home as fast and efficiently as possible. This routing relies on the gravity of Earth and the Moon, and minimal fuel.
It worked for Apollo 13, turning it into what was later dubbed as NASA’s greatest “successful failure.”
Commander Jim Lovell, Fred Haise and Jack Swigert reached a maximum 400,171 kilometres from Earth before making their life-saving U-turn on Apollo 13.
Artemis II’s astronauts are following the same figure-eight path since they are neither orbiting the Moon nor landing on it. But their distance from Earth should exceed Apollo 13’s by more than 6,600 kilometres.
The mission’s Christina Koch said late last week that she and her crewmates don’t live on superlatives, but it’s an important milestone “that people can understand and wrap their heads around,” one that merges the past with the present and even the future as new records are set.
During the flyby, the astronauts will split into pairs and take turns capturing the lunar views out their windows with cameras. At closest approach, they will come within 6,550 kilometres of the Moon.
Because they launched on 1 April, the rendezvous will not see as much of the far lunar side illuminated as on other dates.
But the crew still will be able to make out “definite chunks of the far side that have never been seen” by humans, said NASA geologist Kelsey Young, including a good portion of Orientale Basin.
Once Artemis II departs the lunar neighbourhood, it will take four days to return home. The capsule will aim for a splashdown in the Pacific near San Diego on April 10, nine days after its Florida launch.
During the flight back, the astronauts will link up via radio with the crew of the orbiting International Space Station, where NASA colleagues are poised to have a cosmic chitchat.
Additional sources • AP