More than 430,000 kilometers away: NASA’s “Artemis 1” mission sets another record with increasing casualties on the Italian island of Ischia – criticism of politics

The capsule was about 432,194 kilometers from Earth in its orbit around the moon on Monday, the US space agency NASA said at a news conference. There has been no further distance from Earth in the last two weeks of the test mission – nor is it planned for the remaining two weeks.

NASA boss Bill Nelson called the mission “an extraordinary success” so far. “It’s incredible how smoothly the mission has gone so far.” The “Orion” capsule had already set a distance record on Saturday when it crossed the mark of 249,000 miles (about 400,000 kilometers) from Earth. According to NASA, this was the greatest distance ever traveled by a man-made spacecraft. The previous record was set more than 50 years ago by the “Apollo 13” mission with 248,655 miles.

After months of delays, the mission “Artemis 1” took off for a first test launch on November 16 (local time). The Orion capsule was launched with the Space Launch System rocket from the Cape Canaveral cosmodrome in the US state of Florida. The mission was halfway on Monday, the capsule was due to leave lunar orbit on Thursday and land in the Pacific Ocean on December 11 after flying about two million kilometers.

With the ‘Artemis’ program, named after the Greek goddess of the moon, American astronauts should land on the moon again in the coming years, including a woman and a non-white person for the first time. (sda/dpa)