High-resolution moon images released from Orion flyby by NASA

December 08, 2022 By Monica Green

(Image Credit Google)

According to all reports, NASA's Artemis I mission has been incredibly successful, positioning the space agency for a crewed lunar landing that might happen as soon as 2025. The most potent spacecraft to have ever flown, NASA's Space Launch System (SLS) rocket, made its first flight on November 16 to kick off the mission. The unmanned Orion was propelled by the SLS toward the moon, where it made flybys of our moon at the beginning and finish of its orbit around the moon. Earlier this week, NASA revealed some incredibly detailed photographs from the second of these flybys, which were taken by Orion's Optical Navigation Camera as it came within 79 miles of the lunar surface.

Orion's Optical Navigation Camera captured these stunning views of the lunar surface during our flyby on #Artemis flight day 20. pic.twitter.com/mfTL5ZSPSp
— Orion Spacecraft (@NASA_Orion) December 7, 2022

The imagery's high quality has also greatly impressed Jim Free, NASA's associate administrator for exploration systems development, who has shared some of his favorite images with his Twitter followers.

The imagery we continue to get out of @NASA_Orion's onboard cameras is outstanding. Downlinked the lunar fly-by photos yesterday, and they are incredible - a few of my favorites below. Visit https://t.co/ZrjE1SVAWC to see the rest. pic.twitter.com/5KXDF3PsLq
— Jim Free (@JimFree) December 7, 2022

On Sunday, December 11, the Orion spacecraft will splash down off the Californian coast not far from San Diego. See how to view the homecoming below. After that, NASA will thoroughly inspect the spacecraft to determine how it performed throughout the journey and review the reams of data the Orion collected over the several-week trip. It will then decide on a specific launch date for Artemis II, which will send a human crew on the same trajectory as Artemis I using the same rocket and spacecraft. Lunar Pictures

NASA eventually hopes to establish a facility on the moon where astronauts may live and work. Such a structure might also serve as the command post for the first crewed voyage to Mars, which might take off from the lunar surface if researchers are successful in extracting the moon's water ice for use as rocket fuel. Although the first crewed moon landing by NASA in 1969 heralded a new but brief era of human space flight, the organization now expects that more recent technology and business collaborations will allow it to advance human space exploration.

By Monica Green

I am specialised in latest tech and tech discoveries.

High-resolution moon images released from Orion flyby by NASA

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