All eyes are on the lunar flyby, which will be conducted by Artemis II astronauts on April 6, Monday (local time). It will be the most crucial moments of the mission when astronauts will set the record for the farthest anyone has ever travelled from Earth.
Why is Artemis II’s moon flyby on Monday important? NASA explains
On flight day 3, crew “is now closer to the Moon than to Earth” and the next achievement is set to be the Moon flyby.
It will be the first time in more than 50 years that the astronauts on a NASA mission will fly around the Moon after successfully completing a key burn of Orion’s main engine.
During the lunar flyby, which is expected to last for about six hours, Human eyes are going to see parts of the moon that haven’t been seen by anyone before.
“It also recommits us to exploring the solar system in a way that we haven’t in a long time,” Lead Ernie Wright explain in a video.
A NASA official said in a press conference late Friday that the flyby is important because the “whole point is to go back to the moon” and “being able to see with human eyes the lunar surface is a huge milestone”
NASA has reiterated time and again that the motive is not just to land on the Moon, but to stay there. “And so, this is the first step towards that. We’ll obviously build upon that. We’ll get eyes on the moon, kind of map it out and then continue to go back and in force,” the official said.
Another official said, “We’re building a transportation system and to have a reliable and robust transportation system, you need to test flight the transportation system. And I think that’s really important.
“We’ve demonstrated on Artemis I with uncrewed capability. We’ve added a very important aspect of it, which is the crewed capability. And that crewed capability enables us to really understand how, and when we have people in the cabin, how the systems operate, and adjustments we need to make,” he said.
“Part of what we’re doing is the technical aspects and what we’re learning from taking ourselves around the moon,” they added.
In a press conference on March 29, NASA astronaut Christina Koch, Artemis II mission specialist, said that looking at the moon, what will it actually look like through our eyes, through the windows of Orion — “That is something we’re all really looking forward to.”
What will happen during the Moon flyby?
The Artemis II crew will come their , while travelling the farthest from Earth.
1. What will astronauts see? They will see the entire disk of the moon, including areas that are closer to both the north and south pole, that astronauts from Apollo never saw. But all of that depends on the lighting.
“Visible far-side features will include several never-before-seen with unaided eyes, such as the full Orientale basin, Pierazzo crater, and Ohm crater,” NASA said.
This follows a possible trajectory for the Orion spacecraft during the Artemis II mission, showing what astronauts might see out the window as they approach the Moon and fly around its far side.
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Ernie Wright said the middle of Orientale has a sort of dark basalt lava covering it like the dark spots that we see on the near side. It’s one of the biggest ones that’s more on the far side than the near.
“So seeing it with human eyes and sort of picking out features that maybe you don’t even see in robotic cameras is an important goal for the mission,” he added.
2. How much of the Moon’s surface will be visible? The lunar far side will only be partially illuminated during the flyby.
NASA explains that during the six-hour lunar science observation period, the will be aligned such that the crew will see about 20 percent of the Moon’s far side, the hemisphere not visible from Earth, lit by the Sun.
However, the conditions should create shadows that stretch across the surface, “enhancing relief and revealing depth, ridges, slopes, and crater rims that are often difficult to detect under full illumination.”
3. How close will the astronauts come during lunar flyby? The crew will come within 4,000 to 6,000 miles of the lunar surface as they swing around the far side of the Moon – NASA says it should look to them about the size of a basketball held at arm’s length.
Artemis II Visualization Lead Ernie Wright simulated views of the flyby using detailed topographic maps of the lunar terrain and photorealistic lighting scenarios. Here’s a video:
4. What will astronauts do? They will observe the lunar surface, watch the craters and make observations.
They will take high resolution photographs and provide their own observations of the lunar surface, including areas of the far side of the Moon never seen directly by humans
Why study Moon?
The study of the Moon in itself is important for astronomers and scientists — who race against time to study the universe and origins of our solar system.
Artemis II Visualisation Lead Ernie Wright said the moon is really all about its shape, and the shape is telling you something about its long history and the history of the entire solar system.
He further explains that all the things that have happened to
the Earth have been erased by geologic processes, weather and climate, and that doesn’t happen on the moon.
“The moon has recorded everything that’s happened since its formation almost 4.5 billion years ago,” he said, adding, “That tells us a lot about where we came from, where the solar system came from.”
“It also reveals something about the composition of the Earth that we can’t see because it’s buried beneath the crust. Some of that is on the surface of the moon because it’s been excavated by all the impacts,” he added.
Why is Artemis II important?
Artemis is mankind’s return to the moon after 50 years.
“The emphasis of Artemis is going to be, first of all, science. But second of all, learning to sustain a presence on another world — and that’s a stepping stone to Mars and other destinations in the solar system eventually,” Wright says.
Artemis II is a test flight to learn more about the technology that has been created for flying to the moon since Apollo.
