Artemis flight reached lunar gravity, an important day ahead

The connection to the ship was lost for about 40 minutes. The connection was lost around 1:47 a.m. Finnish time and returned before half past three in the morning. Kuulento’s journey home has now begun.

The crew recently received congratulations from the President of the United States From Donald Trump. Trump spoke to the crew live on the phone. He inquired about the best moment of all and how the crew felt when they had no contact with Earth.

The crew members replied that watching the solar eclipse was incredible.

“One of the highlights was coming from the dark side of the Moon and seeing the first glimpse of Earth again,” the astronaut Christina Koch quoth.

During the blackout, observing the Moon kept the crew busy.

At issue was the first time humans had been sent to the far side of the Moon since 1972.

Before the dark side, space flight traveled farther from Earth than any human has ever been before. It reached a distance of about 400,171 kilometers at about nine in the evening Finnish time. Behind the moon, it reached the farthest point of its own flight path, about 406,800 kilometers.

Artemis II was launched on Thursday from the Kennedy Space Center in Florida. The flight lasts ten days in total. Astronauts do not land on the surface of the Moon, but orbit the Moon.

Artemis II -hearing breaks several records on its way, also for the crew.

There are four astronauts on board: the commander Reid Wiseman, Victor GloverChristina Koch yes Jeremy Hansen. Glover is the first black person to fly around the moon. Koch, on the other hand, is the first woman and Hansen the first non-American to reach this milestone.

On Sunday, the crew was the first to see the entire Orientale collision basin with human eyes.

“It is very distinctive. No human has ever seen this crater before today. We were privileged to see it,” Koch said at an event hosted by the Canadian Space Agency, according to news agency AFP.

At the end of the flyby, the astronauts saw a solar eclipse when the Sun is behind the Moon. At that time, only the Sun’s outer gas ring, or corona, is visible.

Artemis II -the most important tasks of the flight are to test the functionality of the Orion ship and its safety systems in space.

The crew has been preparing for the flyby for years, and scientific observations are also made during the flight. According to Nasa, the researchers have in advance modeled exactly which areas of the Moon the sunlight will illuminate during the flyby, so that the observations could be used as well as possible.

Information and experience play an important role when thinking about the next flights of the Artemis program. The next flight will take place next year. If all goes well, 2028 will see the first manned lunar landing since Apollo 17 in 1972.

Correction 6.4. 1:28 p.m.: In the article earlier, it was wrong to talk about the outermost atmosphere of the Sun, when it is a gas atmosphere.

Correction 6.4. 1:44 p.m.: When Orion passed under the Moon’s gravity, the ship was more than 373,000 kilometers away from Earth. Earlier in the story, it was wrongly claimed that the distance to Earth was 232,000 kilometers. That was the distance in miles.

Correction 7.4. 4:55 a.m.: The article previously incorrectly stated that the flight would have reached a distance of 406,800 kilometers at 9 a.m. Finnish time, and that would be a previous record. However, it is a new record set by the flight. The previous record is 400,171 kilometers and the flight reached it at nine.