NASA’s Orion capsule arrived at the moon on Monday, circling the backside and passing 80 miles above the surface on its way to a record-breaking lunar orbit.
The close approach occurred when the crew capsule and its three test dummies were on the far side of the moon.
Because of the half-hour communication blackout, flight controllers in Houston didn’t know if the critical engine ignition was OK until the capsule emerged from behind the moon, more than 232,000 miles from Earth .
It’s the first time a capsule has visited the moon since NASA’s Apollo program 50 years ago, and it represented a major milestone in the $4.1 billion test flight that began last Wednesday after Orion launched in space atop the massive Artemis rocket.
Orion’s flight path took it over the landing sites of Apollo 11, 12, and 14—mankind’s first three lunar landings.
The moon was seen getting bigger in video broadcast early this morning as the capsule closed in on the final thousands of miles since blasting off last Wednesday from Florida’s Kennedy Space Center atop the most powerful rocket never built by NASA.
“This is one of those days you’ve been thinking about and talking about for a long, long time,” Flight Director Zeb Scoville said as he waited to resume contact.
As the capsule left behind the moon, the onboard cameras sent back an image of Earth, a blue dot surrounded by darkness.
Orion needed to launch itself around the moon to gain enough speed to enter the warped and exposed lunar orbit. If all goes well, another engine burn will place the capsule in this orbit on Friday 1st.
This weekend, Orion will break NASA’s distance record for a spacecraft designed for astronauts, nearly 250,000 miles from Earth, set by Apollo 13 in 1970.
And it will continue, reaching a maximum distance from Earth next Monday of nearly 270,000 miles.
The capsule will spend about a week in lunar orbit before returning home. A spill into the Pacific is planned for December 11.
Orion has no lunar lander, a landing won’t come until NASA astronauts attempt a lunar landing in 2025 with SpaceX’s spacecraft. Before that, however, astronauts will hook up to Orion for a walk around the moon as early as 2024.