Artemis Astronauts Pass Half-Way Point On Way To Moon

You are now on half-way point on way to moon, mission has announced to the four Artemis Astronauts on the way to their planned lunar flyby.

National Aeronautics & Space Administration (NASA) made the announcement on Friday evening.

“You are now closer to the moon than you are to us on Earth,” mission control told the astronauts at around 11 pm (0400 GMT), according to the space agency’s official live broadcast.

“We all kind of had a collective, I guess, expression of joy at that… We can see the Moon out of the docking hatch right now, it is a beautiful sight,” said astronaut Christina Koch replied.

The milestone was hit around two days, five hours and 24 minutes after liftoff, according to the NASA official broadcast.

The US space agency’s online dashboard showed that the Orion spacecraft carrying the astronauts is now more than 219,000 kilometres (136,080 miles) from Earth.

“We’re halfway there,” NASA posted on social media.

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The spacecraft’s next milestone will be entering the lunar sphere of influence, set to take place on day five of the flight, according to NASA.

The astronauts — Americans Koch, Victor Glover, Reid Wiseman and Canadian Jeremy Hansen — are now on a “free-return” trajectory, which uses the Moon’s gravity to slingshot around it before heading back towards Earth without propulsion.

According to NASA, the Artemis Astronauts journey is the first time in more than 50 years, that its astronauts on a NASA mission are bound to fly around the Moon after successfully completing a key burn of Orion’s main engine.

“Orion is operating with crew for the first time in space, and we are gathering critical data, and learning from each step,” said Dr. Lori Glaze, acting associate administrator for the Exploration Systems Development Mission Directorate at NASA Headquarters in Washington.

“Each milestone we reach marks meaningful progress on the path forward for the Artemis program. While we have eight intensive days of work ahead, this is a big moment, and we’re proud to share it with the world”, he stated.