NASA has released the first pictures taken by the astronauts onboard the Orion spacecraft during their journey around the moon.
This showcasing stunning images of the Earth as four crew members approach our nearest celestial neighbor on a crewed lunar mission after half a century.
Commander Reid Wiseman shot the photos with his Personal Computing Device, a tablet computer with a camera.
While one picture features about one third of the globe seen out of the capsule’s window, the other picture highlights the full round disc of the planet shining with blues and brown colors accompanied by a green colored aurora located at the top of the frame.
The crew had covered the distance of some 160,000 kilometers as of Friday morning, approaching the moon from Earth at some 258,000 kilometers away.
On April 6, NASA reports that the space vehicle will travel up to about 406,773 kilometers from our planet, surpassing the existing record set by the Apollo 13 mission back in 1970.
The pictures came after a moment that everyone on the crew said they would never forget.
As the sun set behind the Earth, Mission Control in Houston turned the spacecraft around so that the whole globe could be seen from pole to pole.
Astronaut Jeremy Hansen of the Canadian Space Agency said that the crew had to put off their first meal together in space because no one could tear themselves away from the windows.
Artemis II departed from the Kennedy Space Center on April 1 and represents the first human voyage beyond low Earth orbit since the Apollo 17 mission in December 1972.
Prior to departure, Koch pointed out that she would be part of the first crew that would look at their planet and see not everyone being on Earth, as her colleagues remained behind at the International Space Station.
Now the crew is getting ready to enter the most interesting stage of their voyage.
Specifically, on day six of the mission the ship will come within 4,000 to 6,000 miles of the surface of the Moon and take astronauts around its far side, after which the crew will use its gravity to slingshot them back into their orbit.
Navigation and propelling systems onboard the ship function so flawlessly that an adjustment maneuver planned for Friday evening became unnecessary.
The splashdown is expected to happen on April 10 in the Pacific Ocean off the coast of San Diego.
If everything goes according to plan, there will be more ambitious Artemis missions including the first crewed lunar landing with Artemis 4 in late 2028.
