Orion flies far beyond the Moon, returns an instantly iconic photo
Enlarge / Orion, the Moon, and Earth in one photo. (credit: NASA)
NASA's Orion spacecraft reached the farthest outbound point in its journey from Earth on Monday, a distance of more than 430,000 km from humanity's home world. This is nearly double the distance between Earth and the Moon and is farther than the Apollo capsule traveled during NASA's lunar missions in the late 1960s and early 1970s.
From this vantage point, on Monday, a camera attached to the solar panels on board Orion's service module snapped photos of the Moon and, just beyond, the Earth. These were lovely, lonely, and evocative images.
"The imagery was crazy," said the Artemis I mission's lead flight director, Rick LaBrode. "It's really hard to articulate what the feeling is. It's really amazing to be here, and see that."