NASA says Artemis I Mission is proceeding as per plan

The Orion spacecraft, which is at the core of NASA’s historic Artemis I mission, reached its farthest distance from Earth. It shattered the earlier record for the maximum distance a spacecraft designed to carry humans has ever traveled. NASA confirmed that the Orion capsule had reached about 270,000 miles from Earth. This is the midpoint of its uncrewed mission around the moon. This distance is more than 40,000 miles beyond the far side of the moon. Apollo 13 mission in 1970 holds the previous record for the farthest a human-rated spacecraft has traveled. That mission had humans on board and it had stretched out to 248,655 miles from our home planet. The goal of the present Artemis I mission is to test the Orion capsule to its limits. The objective is to ensure that the vehicle is ready to host humans. The trial run is part of NASA’s broader Artemis program, which aims to return astronauts to the lunar surface for the first time since the 1970s. In a program of this nature, there could be problems and these have not posed any problems. Orion Program Manager Howard Hu said the spacecraft’s performance has been “outstanding.” In fact, the spacecraft is outperforming expectations in some respects. An example is producing about 20 percent more power than needed. NASA’s Orion spacecraft reaches record-breaking distance from Earth on Artemis I mission. The satisfactory progress of work impressed NASA. It plans to add seven additional mission objectives. These will gather additional data about the spacecraft’s capabilities and performance.

The spacecraft will swoop back toward the moon before firing its engines exit its current trajectory and head back toward Earth. The Orion capsule will splash down in the Pacific Ocean off the coast of California on December 11. Experts will keep a watch on the behavior of the heat shield. After landing, Orion must safely deploy parachutes to ensure a gentle ocean splashdown. A NASA recovery ship will be ready to haul the Orion capsule to safety. The success of Artemis I mission will mean NASA will proceed to choose a crew to fly on the Artemis II mission. This could take off as soon as 2024. Its mission would be to fly around the moon but not land on its surface. That will be mission of Artemis III in 2025. It will be unique because it will include the first woman and the first person of color to achieve such a milestone.

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Air India flies nonstop Delhi to San Francisco over the Pacific Ocean to set a world record

Air India has set a world record by flying Delhi to San Francisco nonstop over the Pacific Ocean instead of the Atlantic.
The Pacific route is almost 1,400km longer than the Atlantic one, and the flight covered 15,300 kilometres in 14.5 hours. However, in spite of this being a longer route, the flight took almost two hours less because of tailwinds that blow in the same direction as an aircraft, thereby allowing it to go faster.
This has been reported in timesofindia.indiatimes.com dated 23 October 2016.

On the return journey it will fly back over the Atlantic to get advantage of tailwinds on both the outbound and inbound flights.
Air India uses the Boeing-777-200 which, on an average, burns 9,600 litres of fuel for each hour of flying. Therefore, a shorter flying time on the Delhi-SFO route — from an hour in summer to three hours (in winter) — would mean tremendous fuel savings for the airline.


Image courtesy wikimediacommons.org


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The Two Eagles set a record by flying 6600 miles in a balloon across the Pacific Ocean

#twoeagles #balloonist #pacificocean American Troy Bradley and Russia's Leonid Tiukhtyaev, also known as Two Eagles, have set a record as reported in news.sky.com dated 31 January 2015 - they have flown more than 6,600 miles across the Pacific Ocean in a balloon after they started their venture from Japan on Sunday.
They have landed safely off the coast of Baja California near La Poza Grande in Mexico after being six days in the air. And – they have overtaken the existing world distance and duration records for human flight in a helium-filled balloon. Even after landing, the balloon was stable and still inflated and the pilots were fine. They had been in the balloon for six days, 16 hours and 37 minutes.
The records is yet to be officially confirmed but, the team have confidence that they have travelled further than other teams whose records were confirmed. Water landing is acceptable under the international rules governing the establishment of world records.
The earlier two around-the-world attempts made by using a different type of balloon had landed in the water and were approved as records.
The previous distance record of 5,209 miles was set in 1981 by Double Eagle V – it was the first balloon to successfully cross the Pacific. And - the duration milestone was set in 1978 in the first trans-Atlantic balloon flight.