Four astronauts interact in a spacecraft, sharing a moment while floating in microgravity, surrounded by equipment and supplies.

Four astronauts interact in a spacecraft, sharing a moment while floating in microgravity, surrounded by equipment and supplies.
Artemis II crew aboard the Orion spaceship, on their way to the moon orbit – Screengrab NASA video on X

The Artemis II crew made their way into space exploration history.

After the first part circling our planet, the historic Artemis II mission enters its most dangerous phase as the Orion capsule departs Earth orbit on its way to the Moon.

They are now officially flying to the moon after firing their thrusters and leaving Earth’s orbit.

Now begins a four-day journey that will take the 4-person crew where only two dozen humans have gone before.

The New York Post reported:

“The Orion capsule flawlessly executed the nearly six-minute maneuver — known as the translunar ejection burn — Thursday night, just over a day after the historic mission launched from Florida’s Cape Canaveral.”

“Artemis II had been slowly circling the Earth in a large elliptical orbit since the launch, but the injection burn accelerated the capsule to about 22,000 mph and broke it free from orbit — launching it into the empty 250,000 mile vastness between the Earth and moon known as the cislunar space.”

“The mission’s four-person crew — Cmdr. Reid Wiseman, specialists Christina Koch and Jeremy Hansen, and pilot Victor Glover — will now buckle down for a four-day journey into deep space before arriving at the moon on Monday evening, if everything goes to plan.”

On Sunday the Orion will enter the ‘lunar sphere of gravitational influence’ and on Monday (day 6 of the mission), begins the lunar flyby, with the crew within 4,000 miles of the moon, watching the far side in sunlight for the first time.

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The post Historic Artemis II Mission Leaves Earth Orbit, and the Orion Spaceship Is Now on a Four-Day Journey to the Moon appeared first on The Gateway Pundit.