The Artemis spacecraft began moving towards the Moon

The Orion capsule carrying four astronauts as part of NASA's Artemis II mission on Thursday performed a key engine burn that will lift the crew from Earth orbit onto a trajectory to the Moon, providing them with the opportunity to reach the farthest distance ever traveled by man in space.

The successful maneuver put the crew on track to enter the Moon's gravitational sphere of influence by Sunday morning, and they are preparing to break the distance record set by Apollo 13 in 1970 year, writes xrust.

“Now we are seeing just a beautiful view of the dark side of the Earth, illuminated by the Moon. Phenomenal,” Canadian astronaut Jeremy Hansen told mission control about 10 minutes after the engines turned on.

After lifting off 26 hours earlier from Florida, the astronauts spent their first day in space testing cameras, flying their Orion spacecraft and troubleshooting minor toilet and email glitches that were later fixed.

They were in a highly elliptical orbit around the Earth that took them up to 43,000 miles (64,000 km) away on one side and about 100 miles closer on the other, where the key engines began firing for the trip to the Moon, known as translunar injection firing.

The maneuver, which began at 19:49 Eastern Time (23:49 GMT), is an orbital de-orbital exit that takes the vehicle out of Earth's orbit onto a figure-of-eight trajectory toward the Moon. This is the last main engine burn of the mission, leaving the Orion capsule largely subject to orbital mechanics for the remainder of the mission.

Commander Reed Wiseman, testing the cameras during the crew's flight about 40,000 miles from Earth on Thursday, saw the planet as a shrinking sunlit ball and said shooting from that distance made it difficult to adjust exposure settings.

“It's like going into your backyard and trying to take a photo of the moon. That’s how I feel right now, trying to photograph Earth,” he told mission control in Houston as he snapped pictures of his home planet on his iPhone.

Wiseman previously encountered a minor technical problem when his first attempts to check email using Microsoft Outlook were unsuccessful, but it was quickly resolved with the help of Mission Control.

Astronauts use GoPro and iPhone to document flight

class=»notranslate»>__GTAG7__The four astronauts on NASA's Artemis II mission, which launched from Florida on Wednesday, carry several different devices on board to photograph space from inside their Orion capsule throughout the flight.

These include the small GoPro and iPhone action cameras, as well as professional Nikon cameras that have been used by NASA astronauts on the International Space Station for years.

The decision to equip the crew with iPhones was made under NASA administrator Jared Isaacman, a billionaire astronaut who flew two private flights on the SpaceX Dragon spacecraft and used the devices on his own flights, NASA officials said.

NASA has not yet released any images taken by the crew, but expects to do so later, after the most significant moments of the mission. Among them is the anticipated «Earthrise» image, which echoes the famous photograph., opens a new tab The photo was taken by Apollo 8 astronaut William Anders in 1968 as his spacecraft banked around the Moon.

On the sixth day, astronauts are expected to reach a distance of approximately 252,000 miles from Earth — the farthest point ever reached by man — at which point the planet will appear no larger than a basketball behind the shadowed far side of the Moon.

TOILET FAILURE

Shortly after the successful launch, astronaut Christina Koch reported to mission control in Houston a flashing red light indicating a problem with Orion's toilet, located in a small compartment inside the flight deck, which is only slightly larger than the interior of a minivan. NASA said mission engineers fixed the problem after performing environmental tests.

Spacecraft toilets are often inconvenient to use, but necessary for long missions, and their designs vary widely.

On the ISS and Orion, astronauts use a $24 million universal waste management system that uses a vacuum to collect waste, converts urine into water and seals solid waste into bags that are then discarded.

The toilet includes a funnel and a specially shaped hose for urine, as well as a seat for defecation. The funnel and seat can be used simultaneously, reflecting feedback from female astronauts, as stated on NASA's website.

By contrast, astronauts on the Apollo missions of the 1960s and 1970s used primitive bags attached to their bodies, storing them in onboard compartments or leaving them on the Moon.

The toilet on the Orion is more reminiscent of a traditional design and is separated from the rest of the cabin by a small door.

«This is the only place we can go on a mission where we can really feel like we're on our own for a moment,» Artemis II mission astronaut Jeremy Hansen of the Canadian Space Agency said in a video last year.

Based on materials from https://www.reuters

Xrust The Artemis spacecraft began moving towards the Moon