The four Artemis astronauts have fired up their spacecraft’s engine to break away from Earth’s orbit and zoomed towards the moon, a milestone that commits Nasa to the first crewed lunar flyby in more than half a century.
With enough thrust to accelerate a stationary car to highway-driving speed in less than three seconds, the Orion capsule engine blasted on Thursday the astronauts on their trajectory towards the moon, which they now will loop as part of the 10-day Artemis 2 mission.
The burn lasting just under six minutes propelled them on their three-day voyage towards Earth’s natural satellite, the first since 1972.
If the moon wasn’t adjacent to their path, would they ever get pulled back to earth by earths gravity?
Yes but they would return at a much higher speed if the moon didn’t take some of that energy.