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.<\/p>\n
“Morale is high on board,” commander Reid Wiseman told Houston’s Mission Control center as the space crew’s work day began.<\/p>\n
Upon waking around 1635 GMT on Saturday, the astronauts were approximately 169,000 miles (271,979 kilometers) from Earth, and approaching the Moon at 110,700 miles (178,154 kilometers), according to NASA.<\/p>\n
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 stronger pull on the spacecraft than Earth’s.<\/p>\n
If all proceeds smoothly, as Orion whips around the Moon the astronauts could set a record by venturing farther from Earth than any human before.<\/p>\n
The astronauts kicked off their day with a meal that included scrambled eggs and coffee, NASA said, and had woken up to the tune of Chappell Roan’s pop smash “Pink Pony Club.”<\/p>\n
Wiseman along with fellow Americans Christina Koch and Victor Glover as well as Canadian Jeremy Hansen are on a historic journey around the Moon, which they’re soon due to slingshot around.<\/p>\n
It’s a feat Wiseman has dubbed “Herculean” and which humanity has not accomplished in more than half-a-century.<\/p>\n
Later on Saturday, Glover was due to perform a manual piloting demonstration to provide NASA with more data regarding the spacecraft’s performance in deep space.<\/p>\n
After that, the crew was planning to go over their checklist for documenting their experience traveling around the Moon.<\/p>\n
The astronauts have had geology training in order to be able to photograph and describe lunar features, including ancient lava flows and impact craters.<\/p>\n
They’ll see the Moon from a unique vantage point compared with the Apollo missions of the 1960s and 70s.\u00a0<\/p>\n
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.<\/p>\n
– ‘Amazing’ –<\/p>\n
The crew has been busy taking photographs including with smartphones, devices NASA recently approved to take aboard spaceflights.<\/p>\n
The space agency has released images from Orion that included a full portrait of Earth, featuring its deep blue oceans and billowing clouds.<\/p>\n
NASA official Lakiesha Hawkins praised the photographs taken by commander Wiseman, calling them “amazing” during a briefing Friday.<\/p>\n
“We continue to learn all about our spacecraft as we operate it in deep space with crew for the first time,” Hawkins said.<\/p>\n
“It’s important to remind ourselves of that as we learn a little bit more day by day.”<\/p>\n
The Artemis 2 mission is part of a longer-term plan to repeatedly return to the Moon, with the goal of establishing a permanent lunar base that will offer a platform for further exploration.<\/p>\n
It’s a highly anticipated journey that demands exacting precision — but there’s still room for the astronauts to live out their childhood dreams of spaceflight.<\/p>\n
“It just makes me feel like a little kid,” said Hansen recently, describing the joy of floating.<\/p>\n
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