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The NASA images were captured by a high-resolution camera mounted on the tip of the spacecraft’s solar arrays;
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Orion made, this Wednesday (7), its last pass around the moon on its way to the Earth;
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The images show the spacecraft circling the Moon and getting a capture on the opposite side of the satellite.
the capsule Orion made, this Wednesday (7), its last pass around the moon on its way to the Earth, and the NASA has posted some of the best photos of the spacecraft. Taken by a high-resolution camera mounted on the tip of Orion’s solar arrays, the images show the spacecraft circling the Moon and capturing a capture of the far side of the satellite.
The photos Orion took of its first flyby of the Moon were rather grainy and dull, likely because they were taken with Orion’s optical navigation camera rather than solar-mounted GoPros. Other GoPro photos were a bit overexposed, but NASA seems to have the settings right with its latest batch of photos.
Space photos obviously weren’t the main goal of the Artemis I mission, but they are important for public relations, as NASA has discovered on previous missions. It was a little surprising that NASA didn’t show some high-resolution close-ups of the Moon’s surface when it first flew.
Orion’s performance so far has been “excellent,” program director Howard Hu told reporters last week. The spacecraft launched Nov. 15 as part of the Artemis 1 mission atop NASA’s powerful Space Launch System. Days ago, the spacecraft completed a three-and-a-half-minute engine burn (the longest of the journey so far) to set it on course for a Dec. 11 landing.
The next mission, Artemis II, is scheduled for 2024 to take astronauts on a similar path to Artemis I without landing on the moon. Then, humans will finally set foot on the lunar surface with Artemis III, which is scheduled to launch in 2025.
