Artemis II Crew Reaches Midpoint Between Earth and Moon
By Web Desk :
The four astronauts aboard Nasa’s Artemis II mission have passed the halfway point between Earth and the Moon as they continue their historic journey toward a planned lunar flyby.
Mission control informed the crew late on Friday that they were now closer to the Moon than to Earth, marking a significant milestone in the mission. “You are now closer to the Moon than you are to us on Earth,” controllers told the astronauts during a live broadcast from Nasa.
Astronaut Christina Koch responded by describing the moment as one of shared excitement among the crew. She said the team could see the Moon clearly through the spacecraft’s docking hatch and called the view “a beautiful sight”.
According to Nasa’s official broadcast, the milestone was reached about two days, five hours and 24 minutes after the spacecraft lifted off. Data from the space agency’s mission dashboard indicated that the Orion spacecraft had travelled more than 219,000 kilometres from Earth at that point.
Nasa also confirmed the development in a social media update, describing the moment simply as the spacecraft reaching the halfway stage of its journey.
The mission’s next major stage will come when Orion enters the Moon’s gravitational sphere of influence, expected around the fifth day of the flight.
The crew — Nasa astronauts Christina Koch, Victor Glover and Reid Wiseman, along with Canadian Space Agency astronaut Jeremy Hansen — are travelling on what is known as a “free-return” trajectory. The path uses the Moon’s gravity to guide the spacecraft around the lunar surface before sending it back toward Earth without requiring additional propulsion.
Artemis II is the first crewed mission to travel toward the Moon since the Apollo programme more than five decades ago and is seen as a key step in Nasa’s plans to return humans to the lunar surface.
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