Amazing Earth Pictures from Latest Moon Mission
Not so long we never thought about leaving the earth, but in 1969 we touched the surface of moon. The first Appolo mission carried three astronauts in the space. The mission took four days six hours and 45 minutes.
The name of astronauts are Neil Armstrong – Mission Commander, Edwin ‘Buzz’ Aldrin – lunar module pilot , Michael Collins – command module pilot. Last Thursday, SpaceX launched a spacecraft called Odysseus towards the moon. This spacecraft took some really cool pictures of Earth.
A company named Intuitive Machines, based in Texas, shared four of these pictures on social media last Sunday. The first picture shows a part of the rocket that helped the spacecraft get into space.
It looks like it’s falling away from the rest of the rocket. If all goes well it will land on moon on February 22 and ot will become first American spacecraft to gently land on moon’s surface , since the Apollo 17 moon landing in 1972.
The team at Intuitive Machines set up cameras on the spacecraft to take pictures every five minutes for two hours. They started taking pictures just over a minute after separating from the rocket.
Out of all the pictures they took, they chose four to share. They hope these pictures will inspire people to explore space and if Intuitive Machines successfully land the spacecraft on moon than this initiative encourage other private companies for the space missions.
In an update about the mission, Intuitive Machines said that Odysseus is doing well as it travels towards the moon. It’s expected to land on the moon this Thursday. The people controlling the spacecraft are making some adjustments to its path to make sure it lands properly. If private companies can pull off this feat than it will open the door to wider exploration of the moon NASA and commercial endeavors.
The Falcon 9 rocket lifted off at 1:05 AM EST from launchpad 39A at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center . If Odysseus lands successfully, it will be the first time a private company has done this. It will also be the first time since 1972 that a U.S. spacecraft has softly landed on the moon.
Odysseus is carrying twelve different things, called payloads. Six of these are for NASA. They will work for about a week until it gets too dark at the moon’s South Pole, and then they’ll stop working. This mission is part of a program by NASA called CLPS. NASA is working with companies like Intuitive Machines to explore the moon before sending astronauts there in 2026.Another company, Astrobotic, tried a similar mission in January, but it didn’t work out because of a problem with the spacecraft’s fuel.