Photo: NASA
The Orion spacecraft is set to approach the Moon even more closely.
On Monday, April 6, astronauts of the Artemis II mission entered lunar space for the first time since 1972, following the crew of Apollo 17, according to Space.com.
The Orion capsule entered the region where the Moon’s gravity becomes stronger than Earth’s at 04:37 GMT (07:37 Kyiv time). At that moment, it was approximately 62,764 kilometers from the Moon and 373,368 kilometers from Earth.
Orion is expected to fly much closer to the lunar surface. On April 6, it is scheduled to pass at an altitude of about 6,400 kilometers above the Moon. The closest approach is expected at 23:00 GMT (02:00 Kyiv time on April 7).
On April 2 at 01:35 Kyiv time, the Space Launch System carrying the Orion spacecraft was launched from Cape Canaveral, Florida, as part of the Artemis II mission. This marked the first time since 1972 that humans traveled beyond low Earth orbit.
The mission is planned as a 10-day flight without landing on the Moon. Four astronauts will fly around Earth’s natural satellite and return. The crew includes commander Reid Wiseman, pilot Victor Glover, and mission specialists Christina Koch and Jeremy Hansen.
They arrived at the Kennedy Space Center ahead of the launch and remained in pre-flight quarantine.
