- The Orion crew has set course for Earth after observing the Moon for hours from a unique perspective.
- The four astronauts have set a distance record from the Blue Planet and have been able to explore regions of the Moon’s far side that have never been seen before.
- They are now expected to arrive off the coast of California on Friday.
In just a few hours, they discovered unknown lunar craters, witnessed a sunrise and sunset on Earth first hand, and even caught a solar eclipse. The four astronauts of Artemis II have resumed their journey back to Earth this Tuesday after a memorable flyby of the Moon. Not only has the crew completed the first flight around the Moon since 1972, but they have ventured farther into space than any human before them, over 406,000 km from Earth.
“We will return”
, declared Christina Koch, experienced explorer who enters the history books as the first woman to orbit the Moon. “We will be a source of inspiration, but we will always choose Earth.”
She shared the flight with her American colleagues Reid Wiseman and Victor Glover, as well as Canadian Jeremy Hansen. Glued to the windows for nearly seven hours, they benefited from a unique perspective to observe the Moon, about 6,500 km higher than the view of their Apollo predecessors, who were about a hundred kilometers away.
An “incredible” spectacle observed in orbit
Marveling at the lunar landscapes, they provided countless descriptions of the reliefs, as well as the brown and greenish shadows of the craters and lunar soil. “We see a very beautiful double crater. It looks like a snowman”
, described pilot Victor Glover, who became the first black astronaut to participate in a lunar mission. “It’s really hard to describe. It’s incredible.”
The astronauts observed regions of the far side that “had never been illuminated during Apollo missions”
, confided to AFP at the end of this historic day Jenni Gibbons, the Canadian astronaut who handled all communications with the crew from the Nasa control room in Houston. “Some of the features that Artemis II observed and described today, no human eye had ever seen before”
, she explained. “It’s the first time the most sensitive cameras in the world, namely human eyes, have been able to observe them.”
During the flyby, the astronauts spent 40 minutes behind the Moon, cutting off communications. They witnessed a spectacle that has been seen by only a few humans in history: a sunrise and sunset on Earth, as well as a lunar eclipse where the Moon blocked the Sun, deemed “science fiction”
, exclaimed Victor Glover. They specifically aimed to capture the sunrise on Earth, just like in 1968 when their Apollo 8 predecessors, the first to orbit the Moon, did.
The crew hopes this record is short-lived
The distance record from Earth is only 6,000 km, compared to that of the Apollo 13 crew in 1970, but it was hailed by Nasa and President Trump as a sign of the resurgence of the American space program, with the president even promising Mars one day. The White House chief warmly congratulated the astronauts. “Today you have entered history and made all of America truly proud, incredibly proud”
, he said.Â
