The crew of Artemis II mission are entering a pivotal phase of their journey, as they prepare to swing around the Moon and head back towards Earth. Now on the fifth day of their 10-day mission, the four astronauts are already witnessing views no human has ever seen.
The four astronauts of NASA's Artemis II mission reached the furthest point that any human has been from Earth on Monday (6 April), cruising along a path in the Moon's gravitational sphere of influence that will soon take them over the shadowed, lunar far side.
The Artemis II crew, flying in their Orion capsule since launching from Florida last week, awoke around 10:50 a.m. ET for their sixth flight day to a recorded message from late Apollo 8 and 13 astronaut Jim Lovell.
"Welcome to my old neighborhood," said Lovell, who died last year at 97. "It's a historic day, and I know how busy you'll be, but don't forget to enjoy the view... good luck and godspeed."
NASA astronauts Reid Wiseman, Victor Glover and Christina Koch and Canadian astronaut Jeremy Hansen later on Monday were due to reach their maximum distance from Earth of roughly 252,760 miles
Next they will sail around the moon's far side, witnessing it from roughly 4,000 miles above its darkened surface as it eclipses what will appear to be a basketball-sized Earth in the distant background.
The milestone marks a key point in the nearly 10-day Artemis II mission, NASA’s first crewed test flight under its multibillion-dollar Artemis program.
The program aims to return astronauts to the Moon by 2028 and establish a long-term U.S. presence there as a base for future Mars missions.
The lunar flyby will plunge the crew into darkness and brief communications blackouts as the moon blocks them from NASA's Deep Space Network, a global array of massive radio communications antennas the agency has been using to talk to the crew.
The flyby will last about six hours, during which the astronauts will use professional cameras to take detailed photos of the moon through Orion's window, showing a rare and scientifically valuable vantage point of sunlight filtering around its edges.
The crew will also have the chance to photograph a rare moment in which their home planet, dwarfed by their record-breaking distance in space, will set and rise with the lunar horizon as they swing around, a celestial remix of a moonrise seen from Earth.
A team of dozens of lunar scientists positioned in the Science Evaluation Room at NASA's Johnson Space Centre in Houston will be taking notes as the astronauts, who studied an array of lunar phenomena as part of mission training, describe their view in real time
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