December 7, NASA’s Orion spacecraft made its final flyby of the Moon before returning to Earth, and NASA has released some of the best photos taken from the spacecraft. Taken with a high-resolution camera (actually a heavily modified GoPro Hero 4) mounted on the tip of Orion’s solar arrays, these images show the spacecraft orbiting the moon before taking a close-up shot of the far side.
The photos taken by Orion during its first close flyby of the Moon were quite grainy and blown out, probably because they were taken with Orion’s optical navigation camera rather than a solar-powered GoPro. Other GoPro shots were a bit overdone, but NASA seems to have figured out the camera settings.
Space photographs were obviously not the primary purpose of the Artemis I mission, but they are important to the public, as NASA learned many months ago. It used to be a little surprising that NASA didn’t show some high-resolution close-ups of the moon’s surface when it first passed by, but as they say, better late than never.
Orion’s results so far have been “outstanding,” program manager Howard Hu told reporters last week, according to Engadget.
Orion was launched on November 15 as part of the Artemis 1 mission atop NASA’s Superpower Space Shuttle – SLS. A few days ago, the ship turned on its engines for three and a half minutes (the longest trip ever) to head for Earth. The landing is expected to take place on December 11.
The next mission, Artemis II, is scheduled for 2024 to deliver astronauts in a similar way to Artemis I without landing on the moon. And then humans will finally set foot on the lunar surface again with the Artemis III mission, scheduled for launch in 2025.
