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dpdxguy t1_ixredpd wrote

Reply to comment by Sleepiboisleep in Orion snaps 'selfie' with the Moon as it prepares for distant retrograde orbit | Insertion burn scheduled to take place today then engineers have six days to see how spacecraft fares in deep space by chrisdh79

You know we've been sending spacecraft far past the moon since the 70s, right? The Webb telescope is parked on the far side of the Moon, far further more distant from the Earth than Artimis I is going.

EDIT: learned that Webb is not on the far side of the Moon as I had erroneously thought. It is, however, far further from the Earth than any planned Artimis mission.

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RE5TE t1_ixrj7m6 wrote

> The Webb telescope is parked on the far side of the Moon, far further than Artimis I is going.

It's farther away from Earth, but is not on the far side of the moon:

>Lagrange point 2 — a gravitationally stable location in space. The telescope arrived at L2, the second sun-Earth Lagrange point on Jan. 24, 2022. > >L2 is a spot in space near Earth that lies opposite the sun; this orbit will allow the telescope to stay in line with Earth as it orbits the sun.

https://www.space.com/21925-james-webb-space-telescope-jwst.html

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wgp3 t1_ixrortx wrote

You...you do know the moon orbits the earth? So something beyond the distance of the moon from the earth will by definition be on the far side of the moon when the moon passes between the spacecraft and the earth. The sun. Mars. Jwst. All of them are past "the far side of the moon" even though technically the near side is sometimes looking at them face on.

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Iz-kan-reddit t1_ixseju9 wrote

>So something beyond the distance of the moon from the earth will by definition be on the far side of the moon when the moon passes between the spacecraft and the earth.

That only means it's occasionally correct but usually incorrect.

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dpdxguy t1_ixsasxo wrote

Thanks. For some reason I had thought Webb is at the Earth Moon L2 point, instead of the Sun Earth L2 point. Not sure how I got that wrong, but I appreciate knowing the truth.

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