It’s all downhill from here.
Artemis II left the moon’s gravitational pull Tuesday afternoon – a milestone in its historic journey that will now have the crew falling back to Earth for the rest of its trip home.
The Artemis II crew set the record for going the longest distance in space any human has gone before. Nasa/UPI/ShutterstockThe mission’s Orion capsule crossed the invisible but very real boundary just before 1:30 p.m. ET while cruising about 230,000 miles from the Earth and 40,000 miles from the moon.
That’s the current point where Earth’s gravitational pull becomes stronger than the moon’s and means the Orion capsule has been grabbed by its home planet.
The crew will now spend the next three days effectively falling back to Earth over the vastness of space.
The Artemis II crew features Reid Wiseman, Victor Glover, Christina Koch and Jeremy Hansen. NASAThey were traveling at about 2,100 mph while crossing the gravitational boundary and will steadily accelerate on a trajectory that slings them just over Earth’s atmosphere until they are pulled in and plummet down to the Pacific Ocean.
Artemis II will be moving a staggering 25,000 mph in the final moments of its journey as its capsule falls through the atmosphere – then will be slowed by a series of parachutes which should drop it safely off the coast of San Francisco.
Splashdown is currently scheduled for 8:07 p.m., if everything goes according to plan.
This stunning picture of the moon and Earth was taken by the Artemis II crew. NASAThe long journey home is being powered by nothing more than gravity and the basic laws of physics – none of Artemis II’s thrusters were fired when it began its journey home.
Instead, the spacecraft is using the speed it gained from its partial orbit around the moon to slingshot itself out of the lunar sphere of influence and into the hands of Earth’s gravitational field.
The thrusters are scheduled to be fired at least twice on the way home – but those burns will only be to adjust the Orion’s trajectory and will have minimal impact on its forward thrust.
That’s a similar maneuver that Apollo 13 pulled off in April 1970, when the derelict spacecraft used the moon’s gravity to slingshot itself home without using power.
Apollo 13 set a distance-from-Earth record for mankind on that trip at 248,655-miles – which was broken by the Artemis II crew Monday when it flew 252,757-miles from Earth as it arced around the moon.
Artemis II will have flown nearly 700,000 miles over the course of its 10-day journey.
The next three days should be easy riding for the crew – they are scheduled to do a press conference from deep space Wednesday night and a series of experiments, but otherwise there are few major events until they prepare for re-entry on Friday.
