This Sunday, the four astronauts of the Artemis 2 mission, who are heading to the Moon for the first time in more than half a century, will wake up later than many Earthlings. The control center of the American space agency NASA plans to wake them up at 11:50 in the morning, almost six in the afternoon in Spain. Days in space have a very different rhythm than on Earth, and one of the agency’s priorities is for its astronauts to rest as much as possible for what lies ahead. On Monday comes the climax of the mission, with the arrival at the Moon and the beginning of the flyby of its hidden side. The first time something like this happened was at the time of Apollo 8, 58 years ago now. It is possible that the four of them will be able to observe parts of the satellite that no one has ever seen before.
The last few hours have been quite calm inside the Orion ship, which crosses space at more than 4,000 kilometers per hour in complete silence. Live footage showed pilot Victor Glover floating in weightlessness as he slurped a straw from a silver packet of food. Meanwhile, mission specialist Christina Koch spoke with mission control in Houston, Texas. The issue: where to put some garbage bags full of already used products. It is something that could seem routine, if we were not talking about a historic 10-day trip in which these two astronauts, together with Commander Reid Wiseman and Specialist Jeremy Hansen, are going to make a round trip to the satellite without landing. It will be the first step of a program that plans to land on the satellite in 2028, and found permanent colonies within
A few hours before this scene, the situation was much more compromised. The Orion spacecraft turned on its engines for almost six minutes in a maneuver of utmost importance. That ignition accelerated the ship to place it in the so-called translunar orbit, a direct line to the Moon that was leaving our planet behind. Until then and since takeoff, the crew had had much more work and little time for rest.
The ship has already traveled the distance to the Moon, as reported by NASA this Saturday. At that time, the satellite seen from Orion was considerably smaller than a lentil. In a few hours, Monday afternoon EST, the travelers will have reached their temporary destination, and the satellite will already look as big as a basketball held at arm’s length. The most memorable moment of the mission will have arrived, and by then each of the crew members of the Artemis 2 will prepare so that their eyes will be the first to see mountains, craters and other geographical features that other eyes have never seen before.
These days, there are journalists who ask somewhat skeptically at press conferences at the mission control center: What is Artemis 2 really going to contribute compared to the ? The three crew members of that trip flew over the satellite at an altitude of just 120 kilometers, much closer than the Artemis 2 astronauts, and made up to 10 complete orbits. If all goes well, the Artemis 2 astronauts will circumnavigate the far side at an altitude of about 4,000 kilometers. What seems like a disadvantage may actually be the key to your success. First, because they will be able to see the entire satellite, from pole to pole. And this means that they will probably see the immense Aitken Basin at the south pole, where Shackleton Crater is located. It is here, in a very hostile area of the satellite where areas of perpetual shadow abound, where in just two years the Artemis 4 mission will land, whose crew will begin the colonization of the satellite.
The great flyby distance will allow the Artemis 2 astronauts to contemplate areas that the members of Apollo 8 could not see, either because they were simply in darkness or because their proximity to the satellite did not allow them to observe them. Human eyes can distinguish accidents on the ground much faster than taking photos, even with a telephoto lens, NASA highlights.
One of the declared objectives is the imposing Mare Orientale, a huge impact crater that is barely visible from Earth, as it is located right on the edge of the far side. It is the enormous scar left by a meteorite about 100 kilometers in diameter that crashed into the Moon 3.8 billion years ago. On our satellite, a body without an atmosphere or active geology, the mountains are basically the edges of the craters – there are millions of them; and in this eastern sea, with its three concentric rings, are some of the highest. None of the Apollo missions were able to contemplate this area.
Astronauts could also observe flashes of light from meteorites impacting the surface, or dust floating above the lunar rim, a little-known phenomenon that scientists are trying to understand.
A team of scientists experts in impact cratering, volcanism, tectonism and lunar ice will provide real-time data analysis and guidance to the Artemis 2 crew in space. During the mission, the lunar science team will be located in the Scientific Evaluation Room of the mission control center at NASA’s Johnson Space Center in Houston.
The Artemis 2 astronauts have been preparing for months for the approximately six hours they have for scientific observations in which they will use cameras to photograph the surface. They are also prepared to simply look and describe in words what they see and what they think.
The pilot Glover, who will be the first black man to go to the Moon, has said that he is going to photograph his companions while they observe the Moon to immortalize their reactions, he explained to The New York Times. For her part, Koch, the first woman to visit the satellite, has explained to him that she will take a moment to clearly identify what feelings are overwhelming her; there is probably no anger or envy, but there is awe and unity. When the ship emerges on the opposite side of the Moon and all this material reaches Earth, it will be able to provide a conciliatory message that the United States Government, mired in an unpopular war in Iran, desperately needs.
But in those moments when the astronauts cross to the far side, they will be left absolutely alone. Communications with Earth will be interrupted for about 40 minutes, as the satellite will come between them and the huge satellite dishes of NASA’s ground stations.
The US space agency has also confirmed that the crew of the Orion spacecraft will reach 406,772 kilometers from Earth, which will make them the humans who have traveled the furthest in space. They are more than 6,000 kilometers above the previous record, set unintentionally by the astronauts of the Apollo 13 mission in 1970, due to a breakdown that almost cost them their lives. Fortunately, what is most remembered from that mission is a single phrase:
