Mark Megahan
On Friday, November 25, the Orion spacecraft successfully achieved a tricky “retrograde” orbit around the moon. The good news was announced only ten days after launch from NASA’s Kennedy Space Center. This “key milestone” for the mission is thrilling agency officials which note the project has gone “exceedingly well so far.”
Orion reaches record breaking orbit
As announced by NASA officials, the Orion crew capsule of the Artemis I mission fired its thrusters “4:52 p.m. Eastern time for a 1½ minutes, putting the craft into an orbit some 40,000 to 50,000 miles above the lunar surface.”
That’s a big deal because this particular orbit positions the craft to inevitably break a distance record for farthest from Earth by “a spacecraft designed to carry humans to deep space and safely return to Earth.” Apollo 13 set the previous one at 248,655 miles in 1970.
By 7:42 a.m. Eastern time Saturday, Guinness will be officially revising the next edition to give Orion credit for the new record. By the far end of its loop, it will “reach its maximum distance of more than 270,000 miles from Earth.” That’s expected “at 4:13 p.m. Eastern time on Monday.”
Rocket fuel makes the high octane grades at the pump look like it’s being given away for free. That’s why they picked this orbit. It “requires little fuel to maintain” but will let NASA “test its systems to see how the vehicle performs.” For a gravity detector, they use a small plush “Snoopy,” who has become an official “mascot,” too.
Another important thing about the path Orion locked into is that it swings so wide around Luna that “the craft will complete only about half an orbit in six days before it begins its return flight to Earth.”
After a week taking snapshots of the moon, It will be headed back for splashdown. This mission doesn’t have any humans on board.
Return astronauts to the moon
The primary purpose of the Artemis program is returning humans to the moon. Orion is the crew capsule part of the rocket after the boosters burn out and drop off.
This first flight is just a test so doesn’t have any people on board, just robots, mannequins, and test instruments. Nobody has left any footprints, golf balls or ATV’s on the lunar surface since the early 1970’s.
One thing that Orion does have is cameras. A whole bunch of them, inside and out. Cameras mounted on the exterior have been “beaming back dramatic images and live video from its journey.” One image in particular shows an “Earth-set.”
The big blue marble we call home looks like a marble in the distance behind a looming up-close moon. It’s hard to believe the Earth is a full “200,000 miles away, in the vast, inky darkness of space.”
NASA plans for the next phase to fly with a live crew on board. It won’t land either but the third mission will. Artemis II is looking for a launch window in 2024.
“The mission continues to proceed as we had planned, and the ground systems, our operations teams and the Orion spacecraft continue to exceed expectations.” They did have one little snag. They lost radio contact for a while but were able to re-establish it by rebooting on the ground.
