The Integrity, the name of the Orion capsule carrying Artemis II astronauts on a trip around the moon, has left Earth’s orbit. NASA has announced that it has successfully completed a key burn of Orion’s main engine. That six-minute firing of the engine provided approximately 6,000 pounds of thrust, which gave the spacecraft the acceleration it needed to set it on its path to the moon. “Today, for the first time since Apollo 17 in 1972, humans have departed Earth orbit,” said Dr. Lori Glaze from NASA Headquarters in Washington. “Orion is operating with crew for the first time in space, and we are gathering critical data, and learning from each step.” Commander Reid Wiseman called seeing “the entire globe from pole to pole” after leaving Earth’s orbit a “spectacular moment.”
Artemis II launched on April 1 at 6:35PM Eastern time after a couple of delays caused by a hydrogen leak and then a helium issue. It’s the first crewed flight of the Artemis program and the first time humanity has ventured beyond Low Earth Orbit after the Apollo program shut down. Within a few hours after its launch, the astronauts reported an issue with their onboard toilet, which crew member Christina Koch eventually fixed. Commander Wiseman then reported to mission control that they were having problems with Microsoft Outlook on the Surface Pro device they were using. But they were ultimately manageable setbacks that wouldn’t prevent the crew from achieving the mission’s goal.
The mission is taking NASA astronauts Reid Wiseman, Victor Glover and Christina Koch, as well as Canadian Space Agency astronaut Jeremy Hansen, on a 10-day trip around the moon. On April 6, the spacecraft will pass by the far side of the moon that humans have never directly seen before, and the crew will take photographs, as well as provide their own observations of the lunar surface.
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