The Artemis II mission is about to reach its destination. According to the plan, the crew consisting of three astronauts from the United States, Reed Wiseman, Victor Glover, Christina Koch, and Canadian Jeremy Hansen, will fly to the lowest distance to the Moon – about four thousand kilometers – and will orbit the satellite on the back side and begin returning to Earth. Unfortunately, all the most interesting things will happen late at night, European time. But if you tune in to NASA’s live broadcast, here’s what you can expect and what you should pay attention to.
Official NASA broadcast
How will you fly close to the moon?
- 21:56 (hereinafter Moscow time) – ✅ Artemis-2 crew Defeated The record for the maximum distance of a person from Earth, set by the Apollo 13 mission in 1970. NASA decided to celebrate the event in an ironic way: an email was sent to the crew from Earth, which to date is the longest personal message in history.
- 22:45 — ✅ The official start of observing the moon.
- 02:44 —The Orion spacecraft will disappear behind the moon; Connection to it will be temporarily lost.
- 03:02 Orion will reach its closest point to the Moon, where it will be at an altitude of about 6,550 kilometers above the surface.
- 03:07 — The crew will reach its maximum distance from Earth during the mission – 407 thousand kilometers.
- 03:25 — From the crew’s perspective, Earthrise will begin over the Moon.
- 03:25 – Mission Control must reconnect with the astronauts.
- 04:35 – From the crew’s perspective, a solar eclipse will begin – the Sun will set behind the Moon and hide Orion in the shadow.
- 05:20 — Official completion of lunar observations.
- 05:32 -The solar eclipse will end.
All these events will fit into only one stage, but it is the most important in the mission.
Where is the ship now?
Orion’s current position can be seen at any time on an interactive 3D display Visualization NASA (to view the entire mission plan, click View Mission).
If you don’t want to bother with heavy 3D visualizations in the browser, a schematic itinerary looks like this:
What to listen to during radio silence
Before the launch, we wrote in detail about the mission itself and the astronauts carrying it out. You can also listen to this text in audio format.
