NASA Artemis II tracker: Crew less than 60,000 miles from moon ahead of Monday flyby
yahoo.com • • general
Key Points:
- NASA’s Artemis II mission, the first crewed lunar mission since 1972, is currently about 60,000 miles from the moon and is scheduled for a lunar flyby on Monday, April 6, as part of its 10-day journey around the moon and back.
- The crew—Commander Reid Wiseman, pilot Victor Glover, mission specialist Christina Koch, and Canadian astronaut Jeremy Hansen—has been testing the Orion spacecraft’s systems, capturing historic photos, including the first human-viewed image of the Orientale basin.
- A toilet malfunction occurred early in the mission but was successfully diagnosed and resolved by ground teams and crew, posing no threat to the mission’s progress.
- During the lunar flyby, the astronauts will come within 4,000 miles of the moon’s surface, take extensive photos and videos, experience a brief loss of Earth contact, and observe a solar eclipse to study lunar and deep space phenomena.
- After the flyby, the crew will perform trajectory correction burns, test radiation protection and manual piloting, prepare for reentry, and are expected to return to Earth with a Pacific Ocean splashdown near San Diego on Friday, April 10.
