On Thursday, NASA gave the green light to the crew of the Artemis 2 ship, which is currently in Earth's orbit, for their ship to propel itself in the direction of the Moon in a few hours, reports AFP, taken over by Agerpres.
“It's a 'go'” for the Orion spacecraft to perform the operation, scheduled for 23:49 GMT, after NASA “ended its deliberations a few minutes ago,” Flight Director Jeff Radigan announced from the Houston control center shortly after 20:00 GMT. “We will continue on this path and prepare for propulsion,” he added.
“Perfect Jeff, glad to hear that,” one of the crew replied.
Last night, NASA launched the Artemis II mission, which for the first time since 1972 sends a human crew to the Moon. Although they will not set foot on the surface of the Moon, the four astronauts will reach the furthest from Earth of any space mission. The journey of the four will be a total of 1.1 million km. And their mission lasts ten days.
The four astronauts spent about 24 hours in Earth orbit, and at the end of that interval there will be a crucial maneuver and the engine will be activated to send the Orion capsule to the Moon. The maneuver is called a “translunar insertion”.
For several minutes, Orion will accelerate strongly, and this is the major thrust that will lift the capsule out of Earth's orbit and place it on a curved path towards the Moon. The trip to the moon will take another three days from that point.
