The four astronauts on Nasa’s Artemis 2 mission began their fifth day journeying to the moon on Sunday, after already taking in sights of the lunar surface never before seen by human eyes.
As they awoke for day five of the 10-day mission, their Orion spaceship was nearly 346,000km from Earth and 104,607km from the moon, according to Nasa’s online dashboard.
Former astronaut Charlie Duke, who walked on the moon in 1972 as part of the Apollo 16 mission, gave the ceremonial wakeup call to the crew.
“Below you on the moon is a photo of my family. I pray it reminds you that we in America and all of the world are cheering you on. Thanks to you and the whole team on the ground for building on our Apollo legacy with Artemis,” said the 90-year-old.
Earlier, in the wee hours of Sunday, the US space agency published an image taken by the Artemis crew, showing a distant moon with the Orientale basin visible.
“This mission marks the first time the entire basin has been seen with human eyes,” Nasa said. The massive crater, which resembles a bullseye, had been photographed before by orbiting cameras.
Astronaut Christina Koch, speaking to Canadian children live from space, said the crew was most excited to see the basin – sometimes known as the moon’s “Grand Canyon”.
“It’s very distinctive and no human eyes previously had seen this crater until today, really, when we were privileged enough to see it,” Koch said during the question-and-answer session hosted by the Canadian Space Agency.
The next major milestone is expected overnight Sunday into Monday, at which point the astronauts will enter the “lunar sphere of influence,” where the moon’s gravity will have stronger pull on the spacecraft than Earth’s.
If all proceeds smoothly, as the Orion spacecraft whips around the moon, the astronauts – Americans Koch, Reid Wiseman and Victor Glover and Canadian Jeremy Hansen – could set a record by venturing farther from Earth than any human before.
Nasa said the Artemis crew has completed a manual piloting demonstration and reviewed their lunar flyby plan, including reviewing the surface features they must analyse and photograph during their time circling the moon.
“We’re focusing very much on the ecosystem, the life support system of the spacecraft,” Nasa chief Jared Isaacman said on Sunday in a televised interview with CNN.
“This is the first time astronauts have ever flown on this spacecraft before. That’s what we’re most interested in getting data from,” he added.
On the schedule for day five, according to Nasa, is testing of the astronauts’ “survival” suits.
The bright orange suits are worn during takeoff and re-entry, but also emergency situations, such as cabin depressurisation.
The crew “will conduct a full sequence of suit operations, including putting on and pressurising their suits, performing leak checks, simulating seat entry, and assessing mobility and their ability to eat and drink,” Nasa said.
While the four astronauts will not touch down on the lunar surface, they are expected to break the record for the farthest distance from Earth during their pass around the moon.
Over the next day, “they will be on the far side of the moon, they will eclipse that record, and we’re going to learn an awful lot about the spacecraft”, said Isaacman.
The information will be “pretty paramount to set up for subsequent missions like Artemis 3 in 2027 and, of course, the lunar landing itself on Artemis 4 in 2028.”
-Agence France-Presse