The Artemis II mission launched April 1st from the Kennady Space Center, splashing down on the 10th with four passengers testing how the craft holds up in deep space, fine tuning operations during the orbit.
Reid Wiesman, Victor Glover, Christina Koch, and Jeremy Hansen took a trip into outer space. Their mission was to put the Orion spacecraft through planned tests. Testing things like the thermal capacity, practicing their reentry back into earth, monitoring automated activities, and informing science operations of future moon missions.
Launching from the Kennady Center in Florida on the 1st of April, beginning their ten-day journey. While in space the group of astronauts spent their studying and orbiting the moon, performing a “looping journey”, they traveled behind the far side of the moon. The spacecraft was within 4000 miles from the moon’s surface on their closets approach. On the way back down, The Orion capsule came down at 24,661 miles per hour. The group landed in the Pacific Ocean with NASA and the US Navy on standby.
50 years was the most recent time that an American or anyone has been beyond earths lower orbit, until now. These four went beyond earth’s lower orbit and were the first people ever to reach a maximum of 252,760 miles away from earth, breaking a new world record.
We asked about the launch from a student’s perspective, Addie Gardener (11) says she felt represented as a women going to space (Christina Koch), “It’s crazy to live in a time with such advancements and technology to achieve what we have.”
