On November 16, at 12.17 PM, NASA’s Artemis 1 mission successfully deployed from Cape Canaveral, Florida’s Kennedy Space Center. The Orion spacecraft, which is traveling toward the lunar orbit, has obtained breathtaking images of Earth from a distance of hundreds of kilometers.
The Earth seems to be a blue and white marble in the background of the NASA-shared footage of the Orion spacecraft taking a “selfie.” Orion, a spacecraft with an orbital maneuvering system that will enable it to propel itself into a lunar orbit, fills a sizable portion of the image. Two of the spacecraft’s four solar arrays are also visible.
Artemis 1 Sends Stunning Pictures
Interestingly, the Artemis 1 footage was captured with a camera that was fastened to one of the spacecraft’s solar panels. The Orion spacecraft has a total of 16 cameras that are used to take pictures of the Earth and the Moon as well as other important mission activities like launch, ascent, landing, and recovery.
The videos captured by Orion’s cameras will be available in a range of resolutions, from standard definition to high definition and even 4k. However, due to bandwidth restrictions, we might not get access to the best video until a long time after it was shot.
The Artemis 1 mission had a flawless launch day when everything went as planned despite the numerous problems. Over the following several days, the mission will continue to move in the direction of the Moon until Monday, November 21, when it will make a near encounter. Orion underwent its outbound trajectory adjustment burn, a mission milestone that guarantees the spacecraft stays on course, about eight hours after launch. The burn prepares Orion for its lunar flyby and closest approach to the moon on November 21, followed by November 25 by entry into a far-off retrograde orbit around the moon.
Next week, Orion will do a near flyby of the moon that will bring it to within roughly 60 miles (96 kilometers) of the surface.
