Artemis II crew nearly halfway to moon; NASA says mission on track

The four astronauts of the Artemis II mission are almost halfway to the Moon since their launch Wednesday from the Kennedy Space Center.

“From [Thursday’s] ” said Lakiesha Hawkins, acting deputy associate administrator for NASA Exploration Systems, during a press conference Friday.

“Currently, the crew is more than 100,000 miles from Earth and about 150,000 miles from the Moon.

“We call the amazing things humans do moonshots for a reason, and, indeed, it is literally and symbolically our moonshot that we find ourselves in the middle of.”

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A photo of Earth taken by Cmdr. Reid Wiseman, a NASA Artemis II astronaut, inside the Orion capsule Friday. (NASA via AP)

Hawkins also shared two photos taken by Cmdr. Reid Wiseman of the Orion spacecraft.

The first image, Hawkins said, shows a “backlit Earth revealing auroras as the crew heads toward the Moon.”

She said it was taken by astronaut Wiseman from a window of the Orion spacecraft and featured two auroras and a zodiacal light “at the bottom right. It is visible when the Earth eclipses in front of the sun.”

“It’s great to think – except for our four friends – that we are all represented in this picture,” Hawkins said.

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This image provided by NASA shows a view of Earth taken by NASA astronaut and Artemis II commander Reid Wiseman from the spacecraft’s window after completing the translunar injection burn. (NASA via AP)

A second photo taken Thursday by Wiseman after the translunar injection, which propels a spacecraft out of Earth’s orbit, shows the terminating line separating day from night on Earth.

“So we continue to learn more about our spacecraft as we operate it for the first time in deep space with a crew, and it’s important to remember that as we learn a little more day by day,” Hawkins said.

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Judd Frieling, director of the Artemis II Ascent flight, said that after the translunar injection burn Thursday, the crew inspected windows, planned medical conferences and, while they slept, the ground team checked how the spacecraft was operating.

And after waking up Friday morning, the astronauts were able to talk to their families.

“We had planned a course correction burn,” Frieling said. “The systems work so well now – the navigation and propulsion systems together – that this was not necessary. So we will incorporate this into the next course correction planned for tomorrow.”

This image from a video provided by NASA shows the Artemis II crew: Canadian astronaut and mission specialist Jeremy Hansen, left; Commander Reid Wiseman; Mission Specialist Christina Koch and Pilot Victor Glover. (NASA via AP)

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Howard Hu, Orion’s program manager, said the spacecraft’s subsystems continue to perform well, the air revitalization system is “doing very well” and propellant utilization is within 5 percent of expected utilization limits.

He said they were working on a pressurization issue related to helium that pressurizes the propellant tanks that expel oxidizer and fuel to perform some of the major burns.

Hu said one branch needed to be isolated, but it was redundant and had no impact on the mission.

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“We are able to do the rest of the burns throughout the mission without any regulation, what we call purge mode,” he said. “In other words, there is enough helium pressure in the tanks of the oxidizer itself that we can expel the fuel without needing to regulate or require more helium from the helium tanks.”

NASA’s Artemis II moon rocket lifts off Wednesday from Launch Pad 39-B at the Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral, Florida. (Chris O’Meara/AP)

Hu also showed a photo of part of Earth seen through a spacecraft window, which he said was also taken by Wiseman.

“It brings me a lot of emotion to see this photo taken,” Hu said.

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Hu showed another photo of the crew, joking that Mission Specialist Jeremy Hansen looked like he was “not working that hard, so I’ll have to check to see if he’s doing anything other than lying on his side here, but it’s great to see the crew. Great to see their smiling faces and hear them talk about their experiences so far.”

NASA pilot Victor Glover and mission specialist Christina Koch are also aboard the Orion capsule for the 10-day mission around the moon.