NASA’s Artemis 1 Orion spacecraft is now orbiting the Moon.
Orion had been making its tortuous path to Earth’s nearest neighbor since it launched last Wednesday (November 16) on NASA’s Artemis 1 mission. On Friday afternoon (November 25), the capsule finally arrived at its destination.
Orion performed an 88-second engine burn at 16:52 EST (2152 GMT) on Friday that successfully inserted the spacecraft into a distant retrograde orbit (DRO) around the Moon as planned.
“Shortly before the burn, Orion was traveling more than 57,000 miles [92,000 kilometers] above the lunar surface, marking the furthest distance it will reach from the Moon during the mission,” NASA officials wrote in an update (opens in a new tab) shortly after the burn ended. “While in lunar orbit, flight controllers will monitor key systems. and perform checks while in the deep space environment.”
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The DRO takes Orion about 40,000 miles (64,000 km) beyond the moon at its farthest point. As it travels this path, the capsule will set a new record, going farther from Earth than any previous human-qualified spacecraft.
The current mark of 248,655 miles (400,171 km) is held by NASA’s Apollo 13 mission, which was not designed to travel that far. Apollo 13 orbited the Moon instead of landing on the Moon after an oxygen tank in the spacecraft’s Service Module failed in deep space.
Orion will break the Apollo 13 record Saturday morning (Nov. 26), NASA officials said. But the capsule will continue to put Earth in the rear-view mirror for two more days, reaching a maximum distance of 438,570 km (272,515 miles) on Monday (November 28).
Orion will spend a little less than a week at the DRO. The capsule will leave lunar orbit with a burnt-out engine on December 1 and begin its return home to Earth. Orion will arrive here on December 11 with a splash in the Pacific Ocean off the coast of California, if all goes according to plan.
The nearly 26-day Artemis 1 mission is designed to check out NASA’s massive Space Launch System rocket, which sent the capsule skyward last week, ahead of planned manned missions to the moon.
The first of these astronaut flights, Artemis 2, will send Orion around the Moon in 2024. Artemis 3 will set its boots near the lunar south pole in 2025 or 2026. More landed missions will follow, as NASA to build a manned research site in the South Polar region, a key goal of its Artemis program.
Mike Wall is the author of Out There (opens in new tab) (Grand Central Publishing, 2018; illustrated by Karl Tate), a book about the search for alien life. Follow him on Twitter @michaeldwall (opens in a new tab). Follow us on Twitter @Spacedotcom (opens in a new tab) or Facebook (opens in a new tab).