The four astronauts on NASA\u2019s Artemis 2 mission prepared Sunday to enter the Moon\u2019s \u201csphere of influence,\u201d having already taking in sights of the lunar surface never before seen by human eyes.<\/p>\n
As they awoke for day five of the 10-day mission, their Orion spaceship was nearly 215,000 miles (346,000 kilometers) from Earth and 65,000 miles from the Moon, according to NASA\u2019s online dashboard.<\/p>\n
Former astronaut Charlie Duke, who walked on the Moon in 1972 as part of the Apollo 16 mission, gave the ceremonial wakeup call to the crew.<\/p>\n
\u201cBelow you on the Moon is a photo of my family. I pray it reminds you that we in America and all of the world are cheering you on. Thanks to you and the whole team on the ground for building on our Apollo legacy with Artemis,\u201d said the 90-year-old.<\/p>\n
Earlier, in the wee hours of Sunday, the US space agency published an image taken by the Artemis crew, showing a distant Moon with the Orientale basin visible.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis mission marks the first time the entire basin has been seen with human eyes,\u201d NASA said. The massive crater, which resembles a bullseye, had been photographed before by orbiting cameras.<\/p>\n
The next major milestone is expected overnight Sunday into Monday, at which point the astronauts will enter the \u201clunar sphere of influence,\u201d where the Moon\u2019s gravity will have stronger pull on the spacecraft than Earth\u2019s.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019re all extremely excited for tomorrow,\u201d Lori Glaze, the deputy associate administrator for NASA\u2019s Exploration Systems Development Mission, told reporters Sunday.<\/p>\n
\u201cOur flight operations team and our science team are ready for the first lunar flyby in more than 50 years.\u201d<\/p>\n
For the period of the flyby, which will last for several hours, the Artemis 2 crew will observe the celestial body with their naked eyes, along with cameras they have on board.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think it\u2019s important to remember that, you know, we don\u2019t always know exactly what they\u2019re going to see,\u201d Kelsey Young, the lead scientist for the Artemis 2 mission, told a press conference Sunday.<\/p>\n
If all proceeds smoothly, as the Orion spacecraft whips around the Moon, the astronauts \u2014 Americans Christina Koch, Reid Wiseman and Victor Glover along with Canadian Jeremy Hansen \u2014 could set a record by venturing farther from Earth than any human before.<\/p>\n
\u2013 Systems tests \u2013<\/p>\n
NASA said the Artemis crew has completed a manual piloting demonstration\u00a0and reviewed\u00a0their lunar flyby plan, including reviewing the surface features they must analyze and photograph during their time circling the Moon.<\/p>\n
At the same time, \u201cwe\u2019re focusing very much on the ecosystem, the life support system of the spacecraft,\u201d NASA chief Jared Isaacman said Sunday in a televised interview with CNN.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis is the first time astronauts have ever flown on this spacecraft before. That\u2019s what we\u2019re most interested in getting data from,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n
On day five, the astronauts were testing their \u201csurvival\u201d suits, according to NASA.<\/p>\n
The bright orange suits are worn during takeoff and re-entry, but also emergency situations, such as cabin depressurization.<\/p>\n
The crew \u201cwill conduct a full sequence of suit operations, including putting on and pressurizing their suits, performing\u00a0leak checks, simulating seat entry, and assessing mobility and their ability to eat and drink,\u201d NASA said.<\/p>\n
While the four astronauts will not touch down on the lunar surface, they are expected to break the record for the farthest distance from Earth during their pass around the Moon.<\/p>\n
Over the next day, \u201cthey will be on the far side of the Moon, they will eclipse that record, and we\u2019re going to learn an awful lot about the spacecraft,\u201d said Isaacman.<\/p>\n
The information will be \u201cpretty paramount to set up for subsequent missions like Artemis 3 in 2027 and, of course, the lunar landing itself on Artemis 4 in 2028.\u201d<\/p>\n
By Mois\u00e9s \u00c1VILA, with Maggy Donaldson in New York<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The four astronauts on NASA\u2019s Artemis 2 mission prepared Sunday to enter the Moon\u2019s \u201csphere of influence,\u201d having…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":588421,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[64,63,2065,3389,210250,4935,128,2489],"class_list":{"0":"post-588420","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-science","8":"tag-au","9":"tag-australia","10":"tag-canada","11":"tag-international","12":"tag-mna","13":"tag-moon","14":"tag-science","15":"tag-us"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/588420","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=588420"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/588420\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/588421"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=588420"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=588420"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=588420"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}