NASA Artemis II astronauts in ‘great spirits,’ space agency officials say, as mission nears moon

NASA Artemis II astronauts in ‘good spirits,’ space agency officials say, as mission nears moon

By Joseph Howlett edited by Claire Cameron

from NASA Artemis II The mission spent nearly 48 hours in space as it headed toward the moon. At a news conference Friday, space agency officials said the astronauts on board — Reid Wiseman, Victor Glover, Jeremy Hansen and Christina Koch — were doing well and “in good spirits.”

“They’re really excited about the opportunity to be there,” Lakiesha Hawkins, acting deputy associate administrator for NASA’s Exploration Systems Development Mission Directorate, said at the news conference. “There’s a lot of fun stuff going on, plus a lot of hard work. »

Friday is the third official day of the mission’s 10-day trip around the Moon and back. On Thursday, the spacecraft performed a maneuver called a translunar injection burn, which put it on a trajectory toward the far side of the Moon. This burn was so successful that Houston Mission Control decided that a smaller corrective burn planned for this evening would not be necessary, given that Orion is so on track. Instead, it will be incorporated into a planned burn tomorrow.

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And now the target is in sight: “It was really cool to wake up this morning and look out the window and see the full moon at the front of the vehicle,” Wiseman said during NASA’s live broadcast of the Orion capsule earlier Friday. “There’s no doubt where we’re going right now.”

Wiseman and the three other crew members are the first to leave Earth orbit since the last crewed lunar mission, Apollo 17, in 1972.

So far, the astronauts have spent Friday getting some well-deserved rest, exercising on the space capsule’s flywheel and eating. They also had the opportunity to chat with their families. Plus tard vendredi, les membres de l’équipage devraient participer à plusieurs activités de survie, notamment un tir à zéro.g CPR training session.

NASA is also studying what astronauts will see of the far side of the Moon during the six-hour scientific observing period scheduled for Monday. Officials believe that about 20 percent of the far side will be visible for astronauts to photograph, and this will include a number of features that have never before been seen by the human eye. Among them are the complete Oriental Basin, Pierazzo Crater and Ohm Crater.

“The human eye can resolve details better than taking a photo and then looking at it, even with a telephoto lens,” Judd Frieling, director of NASA’s Artemis flight, said at Friday’s news conference. “This observation that scientists are looking for is really the key, even at a distance as far away as… 4,000 miles.”

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