Today the Artemis II mission took four astronauts further from Earth than any humans have gone before, around the far side of Earth’s moon.
Today was the big day – day 6 of the mission – the lunar fly-by. 6 hours of photography and video, and a live broadcast from the Orion capsule being streamed around the world.
It’s wild sitting in my home office, watching a live stream of Mission Control in Houston, and the Orion capsule – 406,771 kilometres away,
I’ve been a fan of space exploration and space travel since I was young. Stories of the moon landing, and astronauts like Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin were exciting! The Space Shuttle, with it’s Canadarm, provided years of new space discovery through my teens and twenties. Astronauts like Dr. Roberta Bondar, and Marc Garneau became household names.
The International Space Station has provided that wonder for the past 25 years, making names like Robert Thirsk and Chris Hadfield synonymous with space travel.
Today it’s Canadian Astronaut Jeremy Hansen, and American astronauts Reid Wiseman, Victor Glover, and Christina Koch providing a new generation with never before seen images from space.
As the Orion capsule heads back to Earth, the hi-res images and video from the far side of the moon (where for just over 40 minutes, the crew had no contact with Earth) are being sent back to NASA. I can’t wait to see what images they release!