Marcia Dunn
Cape Canaveral, Florida: NASA’s Artemis II astronauts fired their engines and blazed towards the moon on Thursday night (Florida time), breaking free of the chains that have trapped humanity in shallow laps around Earth in the decades since Apollo.
The so-called translunar ignition came 25 hours after lift-off, putting the three Americans and a Canadian on course for a lunar fly-around early next week. Their Orion capsule bolted out of orbit around Earth right on cue and chased after the moon to nearly 400,000 kilometres away.
“Ladies and gentlemen, I am so, so excited to be able to tell you that for the first time since 1972 during Apollo 17, human beings have left Earth orbit,” NASA’s Lori Glaze announced at a news conference.
The engine firing was flawless, she noted.
Canadian astronaut Jeremy Hansen said he and his crewmates were glued to the capsule’s windows as they left Earth in the rearview mirror, taking in the “phenomenal” views. Their faces were pressed so tightly against the windows that they had to wipe them clean.
“Humanity has once again shown what we are capable of, and it’s your hopes for the future that carry us now on this journey around the moon,” Hansen said.
NASA had the Artemis II crew stick close to home for a day to test their capsule’s life-support systems before clearing them for lunar departure.
Now committed to the moon, the Artemis II test flight is the opening act for NASA’s grand plans for a moon base and sustained lunar living.
Commander Reid Wiseman, pilot Victor Glover, Christina Koch and Hansen will dash past the moon then hang a U-turn and zip straight home without stopping on land. In the process, they will become the farthest humans have ever travelled from Earth, breaking the Apollo 13 distance record set in 1970. They may also become the fastest during their re-entry at the flight’s end on April 10.
Glover, Koch and Hansen have already made history as the first person of colour, the first woman and the first non-US citizen to launch to the moon. Apollo’s 24 lunar travellers were all white men.
To set the mood for the day’s main event, Mission Control woke up the crew with John Legend’s Green Light featuring Andre 3000 and a medley of NASA teams cheering them. “We are ready to go,” Glover said.
Mission Control gave the final go-ahead minutes before the critical engine firing, telling the astronauts that they were embarking on “humanity’s lunar homecoming arc” to bring them back to Earth. The capsule is relying on the gravity of Earth and the moon – termed a free-return lunar trajectory – to complete the round-trip figure-eight loop. The engine accelerated their capsule to more than 38,000km/h to shove them out of Earth’s orbit.
“With this burn to the moon, we do not leave Earth. We choose it,” Koch said.
Flight director Judd Frieling said he and his team were all business while on duty but would probably reflect on the momentousness of it all once they go home. “I suspect everybody understands that this is a once-in-a-lifetime moment,” he told reporters.
The next major milestone will be Monday’s lunar flyby.
Orion will zoom 6400 kilometres beyond the moon before turning back, providing unprecedented and illuminated views of the lunar far side, at least for human eyes. The cosmos will even treat the Artemis II astronauts to a total solar eclipse as the moon temporarily blocks the sun from their perspective.
While awaiting their orbital departure earlier on Thursday, the astronauts savoured the views of Earth from tens of thousands of miles high. Koch told Mission Control that they could make out the entire coastlines of continents and even the South Pole, her old stomping ground.
NASA is counting on the test flight to kickstart the entire Artemis program and lead to a moon landing by two astronauts in 2028.
The so-called lunar loo may need some design tweaks, however.
Orion’s toilet malfunctioned as soon as the Artemis crew reached orbit on Wednesday evening. Mission Control guided astronaut Koch through some plumbing tricks and she finally got it going, but not before having to resort to using contingency urine storage bags.
The urine pouches are serving double duty. Mission Control ordered the crew to fill a bunch of the empty bags with water from the capsule’s dispenser on Thursday. A valve issue arose with the dispenser following lift-off, and NASA wanted plenty of drinking water on hand for the crew in case the problem recurred. The astronauts used straws and syringes to fill the pouches with more than 7 litres worth before pivoting to the moon.
AP
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