1 of 3 | A photo of the moon, taken by the crew on day 4 of the Artemis II mission, shows the South Pole at the top and parts of the lunar far side, as well as the Orientale basin on the right edge of the lunar disk. The mission will mark the first time that humans have seen the entire basin. Photo by NASA/UPI
April 5 (UPI) — The four astronauts of the Artemis II mission were woken on Sunday by the sounds “Working Class Heroes (Work)” by CeeLo Green, and they will go to sleep as their spacecraft enters its sphere of gravitational influence.
Day 5 of NASA’s first journey to the moon in more than 50 years remained on course Sunday morning after maneuvering the Orion space capsule in its precise course to ricochet around the far side of the moon before heading back to Earth.
The crew is roughly half-way through its ten-day mission to test the abilities of the Orion space capsule and make direct observations of the far side of the moon, all of which will take them farther from Earth than any human has previously traveled.
The crew’s work for Sunday includes a full sequence of space suit operations and preparations for their approach to the moon, as well as their responsibilities during the five-hour trip around its back side, NASA said.
“We’re going to work!” NASA said in a post on X around 12:30 p.m. EDT on Sunday that the astronauts were hearing the day’s wake-up song, which the agency has been announcing each day of the mission.
In addition to the wake-up song, the astronauts were greeted this “morning” with an audio message from Apollo 16 astronaut Charlie Duke, who in 1972 became the 10th person to walk on the moon at age 36.
“Below you, on the moon, is a photo of my family,” Duke said in the 46-second recording, which the crew posted to X. “I pray it reminds you that we, in America, and all of the world, are cheering you on. Thanks for building on our Apollo legacy with Artemis.”
The suits are designed to protect astronauts during “dynamic” phases of space flight, can keep them alive should the Orion’s cabin depressurize and are designed to provide life support after splashing down in the ocean when they return to Earth.
The demonstration, like many of the other tasks the Artemis II crew is conducting, are meant to inform later Artemis missions to land on the moon and eventually build a human base there.
Although the crew was able to skip two other planned correctional burns on the way to entering the moon’s gravitational influence, an outbound trajectory correction burn is still planned for later today.
The final lunar science targets that the astronauts will be inspecting, photographing and analyzing will be sent from mission control and the crew will prepare to actually enter the moon’s gravity.
