Today's Edition
(WASHINGTON POST)
The crew of NASA’s Artemis II mission has officially ventured further into space than any humans before, zooming more than 400,000km from Earth in its historic voyage around the far side of the moon.
The distance record, set just before 2pm Eastern on Monday, surpasses a milestone set by Apollo 13 in 1970. During that mission, an oxygen tank explosion prompted the astronauts to ditch their landing plans and slingshot themselves around the moon before arriving safely home.
On this flight, commander Reid Wiseman, pilot Victor Glover, and mission specialists Christina Koch and Jeremy Hansen awoke this morning to a special message recorded by Apollo 13 commander Jim Lovell before his death last year.
"Welcome to my old neighbourhood!” Lovell said. "It’s a historic day, and I know how busy you’ll be. But don’t forget to enjoy the view.”
Monday’s milestone marks the start of Artemis II’s crucial lunar observation period, when the crew will document a celestial landscape that no human has seen before.
The Apollo missions were orchestrated so astronauts would arrive at the moon when its near side was facing the sun - giving them plenty of light for landings. But Artemis II’s lunar flyby will occur when the far side is illuminated, giving the crew a glimpse of craters, mountains and other features that were too dark or difficult to see during the Apollo era.
About 6.45pm, the crew inside the Orion capsule will watch "Earthset", when our home planet will slide beneath the moon’s horizon, cutting off communications with Mission Control.
About 40 minutes later, the astronauts will witness "Earthrise", seeing a view similar to what Lovell and his crewmates did during the Apollo 8 mission in 1968.
Speaking to Mission Control on Monday, Koch said she had that photograph hanging in her room as a child: The bleak, gray lunar landscape in the foreground. The black void of space as a backdrop. And at its centre, Earth’s blue and white emerging from shadow - gleaming like a beacon in the endless dark.
