Artemis I mission breaks record 434,522 kilometers from Earth

Orion capsule reaches halfway through its projected journey as it transmits live high-definition images

NASA’s unmanned mission Orion capsule Artemis I reached maximum distance this Monday Reached by any spacecraft from Earth: 434,522 kilometers (270,000 miles), thus surpassing Apollo 13’s record distance, as this day marks the midpoint of the journey that began November 16 in Florida.

Rick confirmed at a press conference that at 4:06 p.m. Eastern US time (2106 GMT) a “significant milestone” had been reached, with Orion and his three dummies on board. Labrode, flight director Artemis I. Orion, which moves at a speed of 8,200 km (5,102 mph) per hour, thus breaking the record for the longest distance traveled from Earth According to NASA, by any spacecraft designed for human crew.

Mike Sarafin, director of the Artemis mission, at a press conference from the Johnson Space Center in Houston (Texas); Vanessa Wyche, the director of the aforementioned center, and Howard Hu, the director of the Orion program, who congratulated them for the “milestones” reached.

The Orion spacecraft continues on its way as it flies in a distant lunar retrograde orbit, meaning it is far from the Moon and in orbit opposite the Moon’s orbit around Earth. transmission of live images in high resolution. According to Space.com, the new images represent the highest resolution live view ever from beyond the Moon, although several Apollo missions were launched from this region in the 1960s and 1970s. “Artemis paves the way for living and working in deep space in a hostile environment and ultimately bringing humans to Mars,” NASA Administrator Bill Nelson said at the press conference.

On the thirteenth day of the Artemis I mission’s flight, the ship’s commander, model Moonikin Campos, said on Twitter that she had “a very busy day” after traveling hundreds of thousands of kilometers around the Moon in the Orion spacecraft. “Taking selfies with the Moon in the background and collecting data from lunar orbit. The model, who is also a superhero in a NASA comic, takes her name in honor of Arturo Campos, a Mexican-based electrical engineer who was “essential” in the rescue of the Apollo 13 crew, according to the United States. agency.

Last Friday, Orion entered a distant lunar orbit, where the spacecraft will stay for about a week to test various systems in a deep space environment, about 40,000 miles above the lunar surface, before embarking on its return journey to Earth. A week ago, the mission reached another key milestone, its closest approach to the Moon, by flying just 80 miles (128 km) above the lunar surface.

According to NASA data, Orion’s return to Earth will take place on December 11, after a journey of 25 days, 11 hours and 36 minutes, with a splash of water off the coast of California in the Pacific Ocean. The overall goal of the Artemis program is to establish a base on the Moon as a previous step to reach Mars in the future.. To do this, after Artemis I, NASA will launch Artemis II into lunar orbit with a crew in 2024, with Artemis III expected to take off in 2025. satellite.

NASA had to delay the game four times your mission, two for technical reasons and two for meteorological reasons. Finally, on November 16, the SLS, the most powerful and largest of all NASA rockets, taller than a 30-story building (322 feet or 98 meters), took off from Florida pushing Orion.