NASA Artemis 1 Moon mission: Watch the Earth from Orion’s perspective

NASA Artemis 1 mission: The Orion spacecraft has captured a view of the Earth from a distant human-rated spacecraft that has not been seen since the last Apollo mission 50 years ago.

This view of the Earth was captured by a camera attached to a solar panel on the Orion spacecraft. (Image credit: NASA)

NASA’s Artemis 1 mission successfully lifted off from the Kennedy Space Centre in Cape Canaveral Florida, at 12.17 PM on Wednesday, November 16. As the Orion spacecraft makes its way to the lunar orbit, it captured stunning views of the Earth from thousands of kilometres away.

The video shared by NASA shows a “selfie” view of the Orion spacecraft, with the Earth in the background looking like a blue and white marble. A large part of the image is dominated by Orion, with its orbital manoeuvring system that will allow the spacecraft to inject itself into a lunar orbit. Also in view are two of the four solar panels of the spacecraft. Interestingly, the video is taken using a camera that is attached to another one of the spacecraft’s solar arrays.

New views of planet Earth from @NASA_Orion as #Artemis I journeys to the Moon. Orion is 9.5 hours into a 25.5-day test flight. pic.twitter.com/CBaA4ZOK4X

— NASA (@NASA) November 16, 2022

There is a total of 16 cameras on the Orion spacecraft, meant to document essential mission events including liftoff, ascent, landing and recovery and of course, to capture images of the Earth and the Moon.

The videos collected by Orion’s cameras will come in a variety of formats and will include everything from standard-definition footage to high-definition and even 4k. But since there are bandwidth limitations, we might not receive the highest-quality footage until well after they are recorded.

After having a successful launch day where everything went fine despite the many hitches, the Artemis 1 mission will spend the next few days moving towards the Moon until it makes a close approach on Monday, November 21.

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NASA Artemis