Earth for a high-speed re-entry

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"I was in the control center for a majority of those images, the ones including the Earth and the moon, and it's really hard to articulate what the feeling is," said Flight Director Rick LaBrode. "It's just amazing to be here and see that."

If all goes well, Orion will break out of the distant retrograde orbit with a rocket firing Thursday, setting up a close lunar flyby next Monday. That maneuver, in turn, will fling the spacecraft back toward and splashdown in the Pacific Ocean west of San Diego on December 11.

NASA plans to follow the Artemis 1 mission by launching four yet-to-be-named astronauts on a shakedown flight around Earth and the moon in late 2024, setting the stage for two astronauts to land near the lunar south pole in the 2025-26 timeframe.

Sarafin said NASA would revisit target dates and possible crew buy phone number list assignments for the Artemis 2 mission after the Artemis 1 test flight is complete. In the meantime, Hu said, "our performance across the board continues to be outstanding."

"We continue to ... generate 20% more power than we really need, we still have a tremendous amount of propulsive capability," he said. "We are looking at other performance measurements across the spacecraft, and those are all going very well. So really happy where we are halfway through the mission."

The White House is lit up with the holiday spirit — more than 83,000 twinkling lights, to be precise. First lady Jill Biden unveiled the 2022 Christmas decorations on Nov. 28 and thanked volunteers from across the country who helped decorate the White House to celebrate the season. The theme selected for this year is "We the People."

In addition to thousands of lights, the White House is decked out with 77 trees, 25 wreaths on the exterior, and a glorious array of garlands, ornaments, glittering stars and gingerbread houses.