Astronauts on board NASA's Artemis II travel deeper into space than any other human
發佈日期: 2026-04-07 20:10
TVB News
The crew of Integrity on NASA's Artemis II mission have successfully completed the seven-hour lunar fly-around and space observations on Monday, travelling deeper into space than any other human.
The three American and one Canadian astronauts caught sight of never-before-seen views of the moon's far side by eye and also a solar eclipse.
The Artemis II rocket blasted off from the Kennedy Space Centre on April 1st with four astronauts onboard: NASA commander Reid Wiseman, pilot Victor Glover, and mission specialist Christina Koch - along with Jeremy Hansen, a mission specialist from the Canadian Space Agency.
On Monday, the spacecraft ventured as far as 406,771 kilometres from Earth at 2307 GMT, shattering the previous record of 400,171 kilometres set by Apollo 13 in 1970. Afterwards, the Orion capsule hanged a U-turn behind the moon, during which the crew lost contact with the Earth for 40 minutes and then re-established communications.
Soon after they flew towards the lunar surface, the astronauts were greeted with a total solar eclipse as the moon passed in front of the sun.
Crew members took a moment to make tribute to the late Apollo astronaut Jim Lovell as his video message was played during their lunar cruise.
Lovell flew to the moon as command module pilot on Apollo 8 in 1968.
He said: "Hello Artemis II, this is Apollo astronaut Jim Lovell. Welcome to my old neighborhood...I'm proud to pass that torch on to you as you swing around the moon and lay the groundwork for missions to Mars, for the benefit of all."
US President Donald Trump called in to congratulate the crew after they capped off the day that saw them loop around the far side of the Moon, which is never visible from Earth.
Trump asked them whether there's a visible difference between the near and far sides of the Moon.
Commander Wiseman said they saw sights that "no human has even seen, not even Apollo."
Hansen said: "The gravitational pull of the Earth has had a profound effect on the near side of the moon, changing all those dark mares, those dark patches of the moon you see from Earth. It's very different on the far side. While you see some small patches of those mares and deep craters, it's very much absent on that side, so that's really neat."
Hansen also made a request to NASA mission control to name two craters they observed on the Moon. The first would be "Integrity," after their capsule, and the other "Carroll," to commemorate Wiseman's late wife.
