Official crew portrait for Artemis II, from left: NASA Astronauts Christina Koch, Victor Glover, Reid Wiseman, Canadian Space Agency Astro...
Out there in open space, four astronauts fly towards the Moon for a date with history.
The Artemis II crew is gearing up for a historic flight in lunar orbit, an exploit that will take them farther from Earth than any previous human beings, where they will document never-before-seen views of the Moon’s far side.
Euronews reported:
“The Artemis astronauts were gearing up Saturday for their long-anticipated lunar flyby, including reviewing the surface features they must analyze and photograph during their time circling the Moon.
[…] The next major milestone of the approximately 10-day journey is expected overnight Sunday into Monday, at which point the astronauts will enter the ‘lunar sphere of influence’ – when the Moon’s gravity will have a stronger pull on the spacecraft than Earth’s.”
“’Morale is high on board’, Commander Reid Wiseman told Houston’s Mission Control center as the space crew’s work day began. […] ‘We’re up here, we’re so far away, and for a moment, I was reunited with my little family’, he told a live press conference. ‘It was just the greatest moment of my entire life’.”
The crew will see the Moon from a different vantage point than the Apollo missions of the 1960s and 70s.
“Apollo flights flew some 70 miles above the lunar surface, but the Artemis 2 crew will be just over 4,000 miles at their closest approach, which will allow them to see the complete, circular surface of the Moon, including regions near both poles.”
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