Four astronauts on the Artemis 2 mission of the US Aeronautics and Space Agency (NASA) entered the gravitational field of influence of the Moon.
Reaching a distance of approximately 406 thousand 765 kilometers from the Earth, the crew broke the record for human space flights. Thus, the half-century-old record of Apollo 13 is left behind. Apollo 13’s record was 400 thousand 171.
The crew circled the far side of the Moon and observed from an altitude of approximately 6,400 kilometers above the surface.
This milestone stands out as one of the most critical stages of the Artemis II mission, which will last approximately 10 days. Artemis II is the first crewed test flight conducted under NASA’s Artemis program.
When the Orion capsule with the astronauts passed to the back of the Moon, communication between the spacecraft and the mission control in Houston, USA was lost. The crew was left completely alone for 40 minutes.
Just as planned, Orion reconnected with Earth when it reemerged from behind the Moon. First, it was seen on the engineers’ screens that the radio signal was returning, and then the data flow started.
During the 40-minute communications outage, the spacecraft had to operate on its own. Onboard computers performed a critical engine ignition on the backside of the Moon, which could neither be seen nor heard from Earth, setting Orion on a return course.
ASTRONAUTS WITNESSED THE SOLAR ECLIPSE
Astronauts examined “impact flares” during this return route. These are instantaneous, very short bursts of light that occur when small space rocks hit the Moon at such a high speed that they vaporize both themselves and a small portion of the Moon’s surface.
The crew took a one-hour observation break and witnessed a total solar eclipse an hour later.
NASA astronaut Victor Glover described these moments by saying, “This is unreal.”
“The Sun has moved behind the Moon, but the corona is still visible; it is bright and forms a halo almost around the entire Moon,” Glover said.
“The Earth is incredibly bright there, and the Moon is hanging right in front of us. This dark sphere in front of us… it’s not completely dark, actually; gray tones blend into black. We can see stars and planets behind it. Wow! Incredible!”
The team on the Orion spacecraft began transferring to Earth all the images and data they recorded during the last seven hours of observation.
