World milestone after 50 years: NASA’s Orion spacecraft reaches the moon and takes an incredible photo of the Earth

A NASA capsule landed on the moon on Monday, the first time since the US space agency’s Apollo program arrived 50 years ago. Upon arrival, he took an amazing photo of the Earth.

The mission of Orion capsulewhich leads test dummies instead of astronauts, it represents a great achievement. The flight test to orbit the Moon cost $4.1 billion and was released on Wednesday.

The approach at 130 kilometers (81 miles) occurred while the capsule crew and their three mannequins were on the far side of the Moon. Due to a half-hour communication outage, flight controllers in Houston did not know if the critical engine ignition was going well until the capsule left the Moon, approximately 370,000 kilometers (232,000 miles) from land.

The capsule’s cameras returned a picture of the world: a small blue sphere surrounded by darkness.

“Our pale blue dot and its 8 billion people are now in sight,” said Mission Control commentator Sandra Jones.

The capsule accelerated to more than 8,000 kilometers per hour (5,000 miles per hour) when it regained radio contact, NASA said. Less than an hour later, Orion rose above Tranquility Base, where Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin They landed on the moon on July 20, 1969.

“It’s one of those days where you’ve been thinking and talking for a long, long time,” the flight director said. Zeb Scoville.

Early in the morning, the Moon loomed larger in video broadcast as the capsule traveled the last few thousand miles after liftoff from Florida’s Kennedy Space Center aboard the spacecraft. most powerful rocket ever built by NASA.

Orion had to orbit the Moon to gain sufficient speed to enter the large and irregular lunar orbit. The flight controllers evaluated the incoming data to determine if the engine firing was as expected. another shot it will place the capsule in that elongated orbit on Friday.