By Oyintari Ben
The Artemis spacecraft from NASA has reached the Moon.
The Orion spacecraft has now started to enter a wider orbit after sweeping 130 km (80 miles) above the lunar surface.
Due to the fact that the manoeuvre took place on the far side of the Moon and started at 12:44 GMT, the vehicle lost touch for 34 minutes.
The spacecraft transmitted an image of the Earth along with the signal. Since the mission’s launch last week, NASA says it has “exceeded expectations” thus far.
“This is one of those days that you’ve been wondering about and dreaming about for a long, long time,” said NASA flight director Zebulon Scoville.
“As we prepare to send humans back to the Moon in a few years, we just witnessed the Earth set behind the Moon this morning as we travelled around it in the next human-rated vehicle. This is revolutionary.”
As it got closer, the spacecraft flew over the locations of Apollo 11, 12, and 14.
The most potent rocket NASA has ever developed was launched on Wednesday from Florida’s Kennedy Space Centre to start the Artemis mission.
It put Orion on a course to the Moon. Throughout its trip, the capsule has already returned a number of selfies.
The spacecraft is also being closely watched by the European Space Agency. The Orion service module, which supplies the power and propulsion for the journey, is constructed there.
Orion will now swing much farther out as it starts to orbit around the Moon after this near encounter.
It will surpass Apollo 13’s previous record for distance on November 26 when it travels 400,171 kilometres (248,655 miles) from the planet.
It will have travelled farther than 430,000 kilometres (270,000 miles) from our planet in two days, making it the farthest a spaceship made for people has ever gone.
The spacecraft will then start its return trip, heading back towards the Moon before landing on Earth on December 11 in the Pacific Ocean.
