The four-person crew of NASA’s Artemis II mission has officially passed the halfway point of their journey to the Moon, marking the first time humans have traveled beyond Earth’s orbit since the Apollo 17 mission in 1972.
Okay News learnt that to commemorate the milestone, NASA shared a series of high-resolution images captured from the Orion spacecraft. One standout photograph, titled “Hello, World,” was taken by mission commander Reid Wiseman. It depicts the Earth as a vibrant blue marble framed by the atmospheric glow and green auroras at the poles, with the Atlantic Ocean, Western Sahara, and the Iberian Peninsula visible. Mission specialist Jeremy Hansen told mission control in Houston that the crew was “glued to the windows” following the successful engine burn that set their trajectory toward the Moon.
Currently, the Orion capsule is approximately 142,000 miles from Earth and 132,000 miles from its lunar destination. Astronaut Christina Koch described a collective “expression of joy” among the crew upon reaching the halfway mark, which occurred roughly two days and five hours after their launch from the Kennedy Space Center.
While Artemis II will not land on the lunar surface, the crew is on a looping path that will carry them around the far side of the Moon on April 6. The mission serves as a critical test of NASA’s deep-space capabilities, with a projected return to Earth via a Pacific Ocean splashdown on April 10. NASA is currently targeting a crewed lunar landing for 2028.
