By Alexis Taylor
Afro
https://afro.com/
NASA Astronaut Victor J. Glover, pilot for the Artemis II mission, is the first Black man to fly around the moon. (AP Photo/Chris O’Meara)
NASA Astronaut Victor J. Glover, pilot of NASA’s Artemis II mission to the moon, made history on April 1. The California native is officially the first Black man to fly around the moon.
Around the world eyes watched as Glover, Commander Reid Wiseman (a Baltimore native) and Mission Specialists Christina Koch and Jeremy Hansen launched into space around 6:35 p.m. EST.
The mission held significance because, according to information released by NASA, Artemis II is “NASA’s first crewed flight test of the Space Launch System rocket and Orion spacecraft around the Moon.”
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NASA says this mission will help “verify today’s capabilities for humans to explore deep space and pave the way for long-term exploration and science on the lunar surface.”
The mission, which took off from NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida, is expected to last for 10 days.
“Over the course of about two days, they will check out Orion’s systems and perform a targeting demonstration test relatively close to Earth before then beginning the trek toward the Moon,” said NASA, in official information released about the mission.
It will take an estimated four days to reach the far side of the Moon.
“They will ultimately create a figure eight extending more than 230,000 miles from Earth,” said NASA. “At their max distance, the crew will fly 4,600 miles beyond the Moon. During the approximate four-day return trip, the astronauts will continue to evaluate the spacecraft’s systems.”
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Glover, who is a Navy aviator, was originally approved to become an astronaut for NASA in 2013. The Artemis II voyage is not his first time in orbit.
Glover was the pilot when NASA’s SpaceX Crew-1 mission on Nov. 15, 2020 to the International Space Station as part of Expedition 64. That mission was much longer than his current one, and Glover successfully returned his crew back to Earth on May 2, 2021 after 168 days in space.
To date, Glover has more than 3,000 flight hours to his name. His experience includes the operation of more than 40 different types of aircraft and two dozen combat missions.
Today, the AFRO wishes all of the astronauts of the Artemis II mission safe travels as they take part in the first Moon mission in over 50 years.