The moon appears spectacular in photographs captured by NASA’s Orion spacecraft because it cruised simply 81.1 miles (130 kilometers) above the lunar floor in the course of the Artemis 1 mission’s closest method to Earth’s pure satellite on Monday (Nov. 21).
These detailed black and white photographs have been snapped by the Orion spacecraft‘s onboard optical navigation digicam on day 6 of the mission, the identical day it carried out a crucial engine burn.
Orion is at present gearing up for a crucial maneuver that can insert the capsule right into a excessive orbit round the moon on Friday (Nov. 25). The capsule will carry out a single-engine burn and all being nicely, will stay in lunar orbit for about one week earlier than embarking on its journey again to Earth. The spacecraft is scheduled to splashdown within the Pacific Ocean off the California coast on Dec. 11.
Associated: NASA’s Artemis 1 moon mission: Live updates
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These detailed black and white photographs have been snapped by the Orion spacecraft‘s onboard optical navigation digicam on day 6 of the mission, the identical day it carried out a crucial engine burn.
Orion has been busy capturing photographs of Earth and the moon at completely different phases and distances to check the effectiveness of its optical navigation digicam beneath completely different lighting situations as a strategy to support spacecraft orientation throughout future crewed missions, based on the picture descriptions on NASA’s Flickr account (opens in new tab).
Artemis 1 is a trailblazing mission designed to check the readiness of the Orion Spacecraft and NASA’s large Space Launch System (SLS) rocket for future missions of the Artemis program.
All being nicely, the pair might fly astronauts to the neighborhood of the moon as early as 2024 — the primary time since 1972 — throughout Artemis 2.
Round a 12 months or two later, Artemis 3 will land astronauts close to the moon’s south pole.
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