To paraphrase a well-known space film, Earth was getting awfully huge within the window of NASA’s final moon mission because it streaked in direction of our planet.
The Orion spacecraft ferried residence epic dwell video of our residence planet over the last hours of Artemis 1 throughout steering for splashdown as we speak (Dec. 11).
The uncrewed mission was a shakedown cruise to show the Artemis program is prepared for people, and Artemis 1 certainly clicked by means of all main milestones: a launch of the untested Space Launch System, orbiting the moon and surviving a high-speed re-entry to splash down within the Pacific Ocean close to a restoration ship.
In images: 10 greatest images from NASA’s Artemis 1 mission
Orion is a human-rated spacecraft that flew further into space than earlier record-holder Apollo 13, which hosted three astronauts that looped across the moon as an alternative of touchdown on account of a spacecraft emergency. (The film quoted on this story’s first sentence was the eponymous “Apollo 13” from 1995 that starred Tom Hanks as commander Jim Lovell.)
Splashdown for Artemis 1 got here through the anniversary of one other Apollo program milestone: the touchdown date of Apollo 17, which was the final human mission to the touch down on the moon to this point on Dec. 11, 1972. NASA hopes to carry individuals to the floor once more inside three years.
Artemis 2 will come first, which is able to carry a crew across the moon to check the life support systems, as Artemis 1 didn’t host any on board the spacecraft. Offering that mission flies when scheduled in 2024, Artemis 3 is anticipated to observe and put astronauts again on the moon in 2025 or 2026.
NASA can also be constructing out a supportive lunar space station known as Gateway, which isn’t on the crucial path to touchdown however will nonetheless present a perch for human crews for future missions of Artemis. The company plans to carry quite a few missions to the floor, each crewed and uncrewed, within the 2020s and past.
Elizabeth Howell is the co-author of “Why Am I Taller (opens in new tab)?” (ECW Press, 2022; with Canadian astronaut Dave Williams), a ebook about space medication. Comply with her on Twitter @howellspace (opens in new tab). Comply with us on Twitter @Spacedotcom (opens in new tab) or Facebook (opens in new tab).
