Artemis II prepares to make history
The astronauts will reach further than anyone and contemplate the far side of the Moon this morning
BarcelonaThe astronauts of Artemis II are preparing to make history this Easter Monday. Around 7:45 PM, Catalan time, they expect to reach a distance of 406,773 kilometers from Earth and become the humans who have traveled farthest into space. They will surpass the record of Apollo 13, which is the manned mission that has flown farthest from Earth: 400,171 km away in 1970. The Orion capsule already broke this record during the Artemis I mission in 2022, but at that time it was traveling without a crew. Artemis II will stay below the distance reached by Artemis I, but farther than Apollo 13.
The highlight of the mission, however, will be when the crew members of the spacecraft fly over the far side of the Moon. Astronauts Reid Wiseman, Christina Koch, and Victor Glover, from NASA, and Jeremy Hansen, from the Canadian Space Agency, will be the first human beings to see the other side of the satellite with their own eyes since the Apollo 17 mission in 1972. It will be around 0:44 AM on Tuesday in Catalonia, when they will lose contact with Earth for about 40 minutes because the Moon will block all communications.
However, NASA has assured that they have it completely under control, as before Artemis II more than twenty astronauts from the Apollo missions experienced this absolute silence. The Moon has a solid mass of almost 3,500 kilometers in diameter, and it prevents radio waves from NASA's control center or the capsule from meeting, so it will be necessary to wait for Orion to appear on the other side of the satellite. This silence will be unusual for the astronauts, who are in permanent contact with NASA experts during the mission.
Observe the far side
After a few hours of observation, they will use the Moon's gravitational force to gain momentum back to Earth, a journey that will last about four more days. For the first time, astronauts are also bringing their own mobile phones to capture images, which NASA will share on social media. In addition, the capsule has 32 cameras and different devices to capture all the details of the mission.
According to NASA, “human eyes and brains are very sensitive to subtle changes in color, texture, and other surface characteristics,” so astronauts can provide details that escape cameras or other technologies. "Direct observation of the lunar surface by astronauts, along with all the scientific advances achieved in recent decades, could reveal new discoveries and a deeper appreciation of the lunar surface characteristics,” says the space agency.
It should be noted that the Moon has a hidden face due to synchronous rotation, meaning the satellite takes the same amount of time to complete one rotation on its axis as it does to complete an orbit around the Earth. This means it always shows the same face to our planet, so the other side is not visible from Earth. The study of this region of the satellite must be done using telescopes, satellites, and lunar missions like Artemis II.
It is worth noting that the two sides are very different: while the visible one has large plains of basaltic lava called “seas,” the hidden one mainly presents craters and mountains due to meteorite impacts. The eastern basin will be one of the main objects of study for the crew, an impact crater 930 kilometers wide in the southern hemisphere of the Moon.
