Artemis Stuff

[Yazata]

Photo of SLS departing from NASA's exploration ground systems twitter. (NASA has lots of twitter pages, but exploration ground systems always seems to have the best information and pictures. Kudos to them!)

Right now, Orion is about halfway to the Moon. It takes several days to reach even our closest heavenly neighbor.

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And here is something else that's cool. It's a Where is Artemis website that appears to have been created by the same people that created the Where is Webb website.

Try it out, it's fun.

https://www.nasa.gov/specials/trackartemis/

[Yazata]

Photo of people watching the launch from outside a restaurant (Shiloh's Steak and Seafood) in nearby Titusville FL. (Lots of cellphone screens)

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Today photographers were allowed out to pad 39B where SLS launched, but NASA was adamant (in all capital letters!) DO NOT TAKE PHOTOGRAPHS OF THE MOBILE LAUNCH TOWER!!

Unclear why, but Eric Berger (who knows a thing or two) speculates that some aspect of the tower was judged to be ITAR sensitive.

[Yazata]

The Orion spacecraft is within the sphere around the Moon where the Moon's gravity predominates (the Moon's Hill Sphere). So it's falling towards the Moon and has adjusted its trajectory to make a close 80 mile high fly-by before settling into a looping eliptical orbit around the Moon.

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(NASA photos from https://images.nasa.gov/ )

Top of Orion.

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Bottom of Orion. (Spot the distant Earth peeking through.)

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[Yazata]

https://twitter.com/MarcusHouse/status/1...3243555840

https://twitter.com/jeff_foust/status/15...9194545152

[Zinjanthropos]

The Orion spacecraft is within the sphere around the Moon where the mMoon's gravity predominates (the Moon's Hill Sphere). So it's falling towards the Moon and has adjusted its trajectory to make a close 80 mile high fly-by before settling into a looping eliptical orbit around the Moon.

[Image: 220px-Comparison_of_Hill_sphere_and_Roche_limit.svg.png]

(NASA photos from https://images.nasa.gov/ )



Top of Orion.

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Bottom of Orion. (Spot the distant Earth peeking through.)

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A great Where’s Waldo of Earth. Love that shot.

[Yazata]

(nasa photos)

Passing the Moon

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The far-side of the Moon, the side always turned away from the Earth:

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[Yazata]

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[Yazata]

The Earth and the Moon in a series of absolutely extraordinary NASA photos from Orion looping way out beyond the Moon in its highly elliptical lunar orbit.

More here:

https://www.flickr.com/photos/nasa2explo...529201217/

Whatever engineer thought of putting cameras on the solar arrays deserves a big raise!

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[Yazata]

Today Orion fired its engines and departed lunar orbit, putting itself on a return trajectory to Earth. More of the by-now-familiar photos of the Moon as Orion zoomed by.

https://twitter.com/LMSpace/status/1599931183680585729

We can say what we want about SLS and Orion being behind schedule and over budget, but I'm really impressed how well the first flight of these vehicles is going. Perfectly, so far.

[Yazata]

Here's a timelapse of a sight you don't see every day

https://twitter.com/TJ_Cooney/status/160...6938312707