NASA’s Artemis 2 astronauts are well past the halfway point in their trip from Earth to the moon — the first such trip in more than 50 years. Today they and the rest of the Artemis team fine-tuned their plans for documenting the crucial lunar fly-around just two days ahead.
The Orion space capsule, christened Integrity, closed within 100,000 miles of the moon today. When the astronauts reach the farthest point of their figure-8 trajectory on April 6, they’re projected to be 252,757 miles from Earth.
That will break the distance record set in 1970 by the crew of the Apollo 13 mission (248,655 miles). And that means Artemis 2’s crew — NASA mission commander Reid Wiseman, pilot Victor Glover, mission specialist Christina Koch and Canadian astronaut Jeremy Hansen — will officially become the farthest-out humans in history.
You can check Orion’s current position using NASA’s Artemis Real-time Orbit Website, or AROW.
A NASA animation shows what astronauts are expected to see out the window as they swing around the moon on April 6.
The Artemis 2 mission serves as the first crewed test of the system that NASA will use to send astronauts to the lunar surface during the Artemis 4 mission, which is currently scheduled for 2028. This time around, astronauts will be flying around the moon, with no plans to attempt a landing. However, one of the mission objectives is to test the manual piloting system that future crews could use to dock Orion with a lander that would take them down to the lunar surface.
Glover conducted an initial test of the piloting system on the second day of the mission, using the Space Launch System rocket’s upper stage as a target. He’s due to take the controls again later today for another practice session.
A picture taken from one of Orion’s solar array wings shows the spacecraft in the foreground and the moon in the distance. Click on the image for a larger version. (NASA Photo)
The Artemis 2 crew took this photo of the moon on April 4. The moon is oriented with the south pole at the top. Parts of the lunar far side are visible, including Orientale Basin on the right edge of the lunar disk. Artemis 2 marks the first time that humans have seen the entire basin with their own eyes. Orientale is a textbook multi-ring impact basin that is used as a baseline to compare other impact craters on rocky worlds ranging from Mercury to Pluto. Click on the image for a larger version. (NASA Photo)
NASA astronaut Christina Koch peers out of one of the Orion spacecraft’s main cabin windows, looking back at Earth, on April 2. Click on the image for a larger version. (NASA Photo)
Other developments from the past couple of days:
- The crew is reviewing the game plan for the lunar flyby period on April 6. Orion will be 4,066 miles above the lunar surface at the time of closest approach. The highlights will include a 53-minute solar eclipse and an “Earthrise” moment when our planet peeks above the moon’s horizon. During the eclipse, the moon will block out communications between Earth and Orion.
- The good news is that Orion is sticking so closely to its planned trajectory that flight controllers have canceled a couple of scheduled course corrections. The not-so-good news is that Orion’s wastewater vent line became clogged with ice. The team reoriented the spacecraft to point the vent toward the sun and melt the ice — a strategy that made some headway but hasn’t yet fully solved the problem. In the meantime, the astronauts were told to limit use of Orion’s toilet and break out the urine collection bags.
- Speaking of the toilet, Koch reported that there was a “burning heater smell” occasionally coming from the commode, but Mission Control said it didn’t appear to be a major concern. Orion’s lunar loo, complete with a privacy door, is the first functional toilet to take a trip to the moon. Apollo’s crews used collection bags for No. 1 and No. 2, which sometimes led to sticky situations.
- Today’s wakeup song for the crew was “Pink Pony Club,” performed by Chappell Roan. “We were all eagerly awaiting the chorus,” Wiseman told Mission Control.
- During a media event, Koch said the crew caught their first glimpse of the moon’s far side the night before. “It was just absolutely spectacular,” she said. “One of the interesting things that happens when you look at a moon that inherently just looks different is that the darker parts just aren’t quite in the right place. Something about you senses that is not the moon that I’m used to seeing.”
- In response to a question about Easter, Glover spoke about our Spaceship Earth in terms that call to mind the Christmas Eve message from Apollo 8. It’s worth hearing on Easter weekend:
Check back with Cosmic Log for daily updates about Artemis 2.
