NASA’s Artemis II lunar mission nears historic lunar flyby

from NASA Artemis II mission nears historic lunar flyby

The fifth day in space for Artemis II I witnessed spacesuit testing, an Easter egg hunt, and final preparations for an impending close encounter with the Moon

By Lee Billings edited by Claire Cameron

NASA launched four astronauts on a pioneering journey around the Moon: the Artemis II assignment. Follow our coverage here.

As Easter Sunday unfolded on Earth, the four crew members of the from NASA Artemis II assignment woke up on the fifth day of their stay in space to a clip from “Working Class Heroes (Work)” by CeeLo Green. They also received a recorded message from Apollo 16 moonwalker Charlie Duke, who in 1972 left a personal memory on the lunar surface, where it is today.

“Below you, on the moon, is a picture of my family,” Duke said. “I pray this reminds you that we in America and around the world are rooting for you. Thank you and the entire team on the ground for building on our Apollo legacy with Artemis. Good luck and safe journey home.”

After waking up (and an impromptu Easter egg hunt for caches of dehydrated scrambled eggs hidden around the cabin), the crew of Reid Wiseman, Christina Koch, Jeremy Hansen, and Victor Glover got to work.

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Highlights of day five included a test of the Orion Crew Survival System (OCSS), better known as the crew’s bright orange spacesuits. The suits were designed to protect astronauts during launch and splashdown, but they can also serve as lifeboats: If Orion were to depressurize in space, the suits would be capable of providing up to six days of air. Two of the astronauts, Wiseman and Glover, attempted to quickly don and pressurize the suits as if they were in an emergency, then practiced climbing into their seats while wearing the suit. They also tested eating and drinking through a small port on the helmet of each suit.

Another key event on day five was an outbound trajectory correction – a brief firing of Orion’s auxiliary thrusters at 11:03 p.m. EDT to keep the spacecraft on track for the trip to the Moon and the trip back.

Early Monday morning at 12:41 a.m., the spacecraft entered the lunar sphere of influence, where the Moon’s gravitational pull exceeds that of the Earth. Day six marks their long-awaited rendezvous with the Moon: a lunar observing period of approximately six hours beginning at 2:45 p.m. Over the course of several hours, the crew will see and study the moon 4,070 miles from its surface, observing parts of the far side for the first time with human eyes, targeting approximately 35 lunar sites for lunar observation and taking thousands of photographs. At 8:35 p.m., near the end of the meeting, the astronauts will also see a solar eclipse from space, a rare opportunity to glimpse the crown of our star as well as possible flashes of micrometeoroid impacts on the lunar surface below. And at 1:56 p.m. Artemis II should surpass the distance record set in 1970 by Apollo 13; The crew will reach its maximum distance from Earth – 252,760 miles – at 7:07 p.m. This will mark the farthest distance a human has ever traveled from our planet.

From 9:30 a.m. Monday, Artemis II was more than 228,000 miles from Earth, about 46,000 miles from the Moon and was moving at about 1,426 miles per hour.

The further the crew travels from Earth, the more they ponder all that awaits them back home. The mission has already rayon back spectacular images of Earth from deep spacebut the best is yet to come.

“You are honored,” said Canadian Space Agency astronaut and mission specialist Hansen during a interview with NBC News SATURDAY. “The fact that there are four of us here brings you to your knees…There’s a lot of gratitude to the teams of people who made this possible.”

“Vision [the moon] in a different way and pairing that with how much we miss and love our families and knowing that they look up and see the same moon, it’s a pretty amazing feeling,” said NASA astronaut and mission specialist Christina Koch during the same interview.

That feeling was particularly poignant for mission commander Reid Wiseman, a NASA astronaut and widower who, shortly before the NBC News interview, had spoken with his two teenage daughters — his first opportunity to speak with them since the launch. “It was surreal,” he told NBC News. “For a moment, I found my little family. It was quite simply the greatest moment of my entire life.”

The crew’s emotions on the eve of Easter Sunday had echoed those of their predecessors on Apollo 8, who had read the biblical book of Genesis while orbiting the moon on Christmas Eve 1968. Speaking to CBS News In the final hours of the fourth day, NASA pilot Victor Glover Artemis II, took this moment to offer a heartfelt message of unity: Earth, our shared oasis in the void, is what made their mission special, not the other way around.

“You’re talking to us because we’re on a spaceship very far from Earth, but you’re on a spaceship called Earth that was created to give us a place to live in the universe,” he said. “Maybe the distance between us and you makes you think what we’re doing is special. But we’re the same distance from you, and I’m trying to say, trust me, You are special… As we approach Easter Sunday thinking about, you know, all cultures around the world – whether you celebrate them or not, whether you believe in God or not – it’s an opportunity for us to remember where we are, who we are and that we are the same thing and that we need to get through this together.

Huddled close to Orion, the four astronauts shook hands as Glover finished speaking. The culmination of their time together in space – the sixth day lunar flyby – is almost here.