Marcia Dunn
Updated ,first published
Cape Canaveral, Florida: NASA’s Artemis II astronauts fired their engines and headed toward the moon Thursday night (Florida time), breaking free from the shackles that have trapped humanity in shallow laps around Earth in the decades since Apollo.
The so-called translunar injection occurred 25 hours after liftoff, putting the three Americans and one Canadian on track for a lunar flyby early next week. His Orion capsule left orbit around the Earth at just the right time and chased the Moon almost 400,000 kilometers away.
“Ladies and gentlemen, I am very excited to tell you that for the first time since 1972, during Apollo 17, humans left Earth’s orbit,” NASA’s Lori Glaze announced at a press conference.
The engine ignition was flawless, he noted.
Canadian astronaut Jeremy Hansen said he and his crewmates were glued to the capsule windows as they left Earth in the rearview mirror, enjoying the “phenomenal” views. Their faces were so pressed against the windows that they had to be cleaned.
“Humanity has shown once again what we are capable of, and it is its hopes for the future that now take us on this journey around the moon,” Hansen said.
On Friday morning (US time), NASA shared new photographs. of Earth taken by Commander Reid Wiseman from the window of the Orion capsule after completing the translunar injection.
“There are two auroras (top right and bottom left) and the zodiacal light (bottom right) is visible when the Earth eclipses the Sun,” NASA said.
NASA had the Artemis II crew stay close to home for a day to test their capsule’s life support systems before clearing them for lunar exit.
Now committed to the moon, the Artemis II test flight is the opening act of NASA’s grand plans for a lunar base and sustained lunar life.
Wiseman, pilot Victor Glover, Christina Koch and Hansen will zip past the moon, then make a U-turn and head straight for home without stopping on the ground. In the process, they will become the longest distance humans have ever traveled from Earth, breaking the Apollo 13 distance record set in 1970. They could also become the fastest during their re-entry at the end of the 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-U.S. citizen, respectively, to jump to the moon. The 24 Apollo lunar travelers were all white men.
To set the mood for the day’s main event, Mission Control woke up the team with John Legend. green light with Andre 3000 and a mix of NASA teams cheering them on. “We’re ready to go,” Glover said.
Mission Control gave the final go-ahead minutes before the critical engine fired, telling the astronauts they were embarking on “humanity’s lunar homecoming arc” to bring them back to Earth. The capsule relies on the gravity of the Earth and the Moon (called a lunar free-return trajectory) to complete the round-trip figure-eight circuit. The engine accelerated their capsule to more than 38,000 km/h to take them out of Earth’s orbit.
“With this fire on the Moon, we didn’t abandon Earth. We chose it,” Koch said.
Flight director Judd Frieling said he and his team were working while on duty, but would likely reflect on the importance of it all once they returned home. “I suspect everyone understands that this is a once-in-a-lifetime moment,” he told reporters.
The next big milestone will be Monday’s lunar flyby.
Orion will zoom 6,400 kilometers beyond the Moon before returning, providing unprecedented, illuminated views of the far side of the Moon, at least to human eyes. The cosmos will even treat the Artemis II astronauts to a total solar eclipse, as the moon temporarily blocks the sun from their perspective.
While awaiting their orbital departure on Thursday, astronauts savored views of Earth from tens of thousands of kilometers above. Koch told Mission Control that they could make out all the coasts of the continents and even the South Pole, their former territory.
NASA is counting on the test flight to launch the entire Artemis program and lead to the landing of two astronauts on the moon in 2028.
However, the so-called moon bath may need some design adjustments.
Orion’s toilet failed as soon as the Artemis crew reached orbit Wednesday night. Mission Control guided Astronaut Koch through some plumbing tricks and finally got it up and running, but not before resorting to using contingency bags to store urine.
Urine bags serve double duty. Mission control ordered the crew to fill a bunch of empty bags with water from the capsule’s dispenser on Thursday. A problem arose with the dispenser valve after takeoff, and NASA wanted to have plenty of drinking water on hand for the crew in case the problem occurred again. The astronauts used straws and syringes to fill the bags with more than 7 liters before turning towards the moon.
AP
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