The Artemis II astronauts yesterday passed the halfway point between Earth and the moon as they sped toward a planned lunar flyby, with NASA releasing initial images of Earth taken from inside the Orion spacecraft.
Astronaut Christina Koch said the crew had a collective “expression of joy” upon being told of the milestone, which was hit about two days, five hours and 24 minutes after the spacecraft blasted off from the Kennedy Space Center in Florida.
“We can see the moon out of the docking hatch right now, it is a beautiful sight,” Koch said.
Photo: Reid Wiseman, EPA / NASA
NASA’s online dashboard showed that the Orion spacecraft carrying the astronauts was more than 229,000km from Earth.
After a flurry of high-stakes activity including a dramatic blast-off and an engine firing that catapulted them on their historic trajectory to circle the moon, the four astronauts aboard were able to catch their breath, even as they continued to perform a variety of equipment checks and tests.
“There has been a tremendous amount of disbelief for me, it’s just so extraordinary,” Canadian astronaut Jeremy Hansen said.
“I really like it up here,” said Hansen, on his first ever journey to space. “The views are extraordinary.”
“It’s really fun to be floating around” in zero gravity, he added. “It just makes me feel like a little kid.”
Hansen is on the crew with Americans Koch, Victor Glover and Reid Wiseman.
They are due to loop around the moon early next week — a feat not accomplished in more than 50 years.
“We continue to learn all about our spacecraft as we operate it in deep space with crew for the first time,” Hawkins said. “It’s important to remind ourselves of that as we learn a little bit more day by day.”
Friday’s to-do list includes a CPR demonstration and medical kit checks, as well as preparation for the scientific observations they would need to document when they are closest to the moon on day six of their journey, NASA said.
NASA officials said all systems were performing well, and that the astronauts were in “great spirits” and had spoken to their families.
The next major milestone of the approximately 10-day journey is expected overnight today into tomorrow, at which point the astronauts would enter the “lunar sphere of influence” — when the moon’s gravity would have stronger pull on the spacecraft than Earth’s.
If all proceeds smoothly, as Orion whips around the moon, the astronauts could set a record by venturing farther from Earth than any human before.
“There is nothing normal about this,” Wiseman said. “Sending four humans 250,000 miles away is a Herculean effort, and we are now just realizing the gravity of that.”
Japan has deployed long-range missiles in a southwestern region near China, the Japanese defense minister said yesterday, at a time when ties with Beijing are at their lowest in recent years. The missiles were installed in Kumamoto in the southern region of Kyushu, as Japan is attempting to shore up its military capacity as China steps up naval activity in the East China Sea. “Standoff defense capabilities enable us to counter the threat of enemy forces attempting to invade our country ... while ensuring the safety of our personnel,” Japanese Minister of Defense Shinjiro Koizumi said. “This is an extremely important initiative for
Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Chairwoman Cheng Li-wun (鄭麗文) today accepted an invitation from Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) to lead a delegation to China next month, saying she hopes to promote the peaceful development of cross-strait relations and bring stability to the Taiwan Strait. “I am grateful and happy to accept this invitation,” Cheng said in a statement from the KMT chairperson’s office. Cheng said she hopes both sides can work together to promote the peaceful development of cross-strait relations, enhance exchange and cooperation, bring stability to the Taiwan Strait and improve people’s livelihoods. At today's news conference, Cheng said any efforts to
MORE POPULAR: Taiwan Pass sales increased by 59 percent during the first quarter compared with the same period last year, the Tourism Administration said The Tourism Administration yesterday said that it has streamlined the Taiwan Pass, with two versions available for purchase beginning today. The tourism agency has made the pass available to international tourists since 2024, allowing them to access the high-speed rail, Taiwan Railway Corp services, four MRT systems and four Taiwan Tourist Shuttles. Previously, five types of Taiwan Pass were available, but some tourists have said that the offerings were too complicated. The agency said only two types of Taiwan Pass would be available, starting from a three-day pass with the high-speed rail and a three-day pass with Taiwan Railway Corp. The former costs NT$2,800
The nation’s fastest supercomputer, Nano 4 (晶創26), is scheduled to be launched in the third quarter, and would be used to train large language models in finance and national defense sectors, the National Center for High-Performance Computing (NCHC) said. The supercomputer, which would operate at about 86.05 petaflops, is being tested at a new cloud computing center in the Southern Taiwan Science Park in Tainan. The exterior of the server cabinet features chip circuitry patterns overlaid with a map of Taiwan, highlighting the nation’s central position in the semiconductor industry. The center also houses Taiwania 2, Taiwania 3, Forerunner 1 and
RSS