Four astronauts are now inexorably bound for the Moon
Text settings Story text Size Small Standard Large Width * Standard Wide Links Standard Orange * Subscribers only Learn more Minimize to nav The Orion spacecraft successfully fired its main engine for 5 minutes and 50 seconds on Thursday, sending four astronauts on a free-return trajectory around the Moon. For NASA and the Artemis II crew members, this marked a point of no return for more than week. Most Americans, indeed about three-quarters of the population around the world, have not witnessed humans leaving low-Earth orbit in their lifetimes. The last time this occurred was 1972, with the final Apollo Moon mission. The “translunar injection” burn of Orion’s main engine occurred about one day after the successful launch of the…
