NASA’s Artemis program wants to place astronauts on the lunar surface, and it’s successfully completed its first step of this long journey. The Artemis 1 mission has reached its destination, and we’re already getting some marvelous shots showing us our planet in an entirely new context.
While we normally see the moon rise and set. But in a recent video Artemis 1 sent back to earth, we see our planet as it sets behind the moon – and it’s absolutely magical to watch.
The Artemis program was named after the Greek goddess of the moon and twin sister to Apollo. And as I’m sure you know, the Apollo mission first brought astronauts to the moon on 20 July 1969. More than half a century later, NASA successfully launched Artemis 1 on 16 November 2022, and all of the mission milestones have been reached so far.
As a part of the Artemis 1, NASA launched the unmanned Orion spacecraft, the future home to four astronauts who will be sent to the moon as a part of the Artemis mission. Orion is on its test flight around the moon, and it’s successfully completed five outbound trajectory corrections so far.
On the sixth day of the mission, NASA live-streamed Orion’s engine burn and the video of the spacecraft flying near the moon. This is the footage that shows the earth setting behind the moon, and in my opinion, it puts things into a whole new perspective.
[via Space.com; lead image credits: NASA]
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