NATIONAL NEWS – Artemis II mission makes it to the moon, captures stunning visuals

By Renae Hefty

NASA’s Artemis II mission began April 1, with the launch of the Orion space capsule, carrying three crew members: three Americans and one Canadian astronaut. The crew will travel farther into space than any human has before, looping around the moon and coming back to Earth. The mission is meant to test key systems on the Orion, and deep space travel’s effect on human bodies, as well as make geological observations of the moon’s surface. The crew will see the side of the moon never before seen by human eyes. The crew will be out of range of radio signals from Earth for about 40 minutes while on the far side of the moon. The Orion took about eight minutes from launch to enter space. As of Monday afternoon, the crew was more than 250,000 from Earth and within the moon’s gravitational pull. They surpassed the record for the farthest humans have been from Earth, which was 248,655 miles, at about 2 p.m. The record was set by the Apollo 13 mission in 1970. The crew of Artemis II went as far as 252,760 miles by 7:07 p.m. before looping back to Earth.

On return, the Orion capsule, which the crew has named “Integrity,” will splash down off the coast of San Diego. NASA’s AROW website shows a visualization of the space capsule, as well as a live tracker of its distance from Earth and the moon.