The 4-person crew in the Orion capsule on NASA's Artemis II space shuttle carried out a key thruster firing on Thursday, sending the ship past the main orbit of the Earth towards the moon, in the hope of beating Apollo 13's distance in 1970, as they took pictures using phones and cameras.

A thruster firing is an orbital exit ramp slinging them out of Earth's orbit and onto a figure-eight-shaped trajectory toward the moon.

It's the final major thruster firing of the 10-day historic mission and now the crew will rely on orbital mechanics for the remainder of the journey.

"We are getting just a beautiful view of the dark side of the Earth lit by the moon right now. Phenomenal" said Canadian astronaut Jeremy Hansen, talking to mission control on Earth 10 minutes after the manoeuvre.

In the first full day after launch, the astronauts tested cameras and took pictures on their iPhones, practiced steering and dealt with minor toilet and email connectivity issues.

Commander Reid Wiseman, while testing cameras as the crew flew roughly 40,000 miles away from Earth earlier on Thursday, said he saw the planet as a shrinking sunlit globe, and said taking photos from that distance made it difficult to adjust exposure settings.

"It's like walking out back at your house, trying to take a picture of the moon. That's what it feels like right now trying to take a picture of Earth," he told mission control in Houston as he snapped photos of his home planet with an iPhone.

Wiseman earlier faced a minor tech issue when his initial attempts to use Microsoft Outlook to check emails failed, but that was fixed quickly with the help from mission control. Another astronaut, Christina Koch, noticed a small red light on the toilet and it was fixed by mission engineers.

• NASA launches four astronauts on world's first crewed lunar mission in half a century
• Artemis II: NASA prepares for first crewed Moon mission in decades
• NASA prepares Artemis 2 mission as astronauts set for lunar slingshot

Picture tells a story of a thousand miles

The crew have been equipped with GoPro action cameras, iPhones and Nikon cameras to document their journey and views. NASA is expected to release captured photos from the mission later on in the mission.

The decision to equip the crew with iPhones was made under NASA Administrator Jared Isaacman, a billionaire astronaut who flew on two private SpaceX Dragon missions and used the devices during his own flights, NASA officials have said.

On day six, the astronauts are expected to reach roughly 252,000 miles from Earth, the most distant point ever flown by humans, when the planet will appear no larger than a basketball beyond the moon’s shadowed far side.

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