NASA aims to return humans to the Moon after half a century, but it still needs information about such a cosmic journey. Orion is a partially reusable crewed spacecraft that’s used within the Artemis program of the American space agency. On Friday, Orion managed to arrive in the orbit of our natural satellite, according to ScienceAlert.
The mission involving Orion has been delayed plenty of times, but it’s great to see that NASA finally had the time and resources to put its idea into practice.
Completing half an orbit around the Moon
While the spacecraft will be in deep space and lunar orbit, flight controllers will have to perform checkouts and monitor key systems. Orion will have to complete half an orbit around the Moon and return home. The mission will last for a few days.
Houston, we have a new record 🌎
On Saturday Nov. 26, at 8:40 a.m. ET, @NASA_Orion broke the record for the farthest distance traveled from Earth of a human-rated spacecraft. The record was previously held by Apollo 13 at 248,655 statute miles from Earth. Go Artemis! pic.twitter.com/B4hcXHJESC
— NASA's Johnson Space Center (@NASA_Johnson) November 26, 2022
Jim Geffre, who is the integration manager of Orion, explained as Engadget quotes:
Artemis I was designed to stress the systems of Orion and we settled on the distant retrograde orbit as a really good way to do that,
It just so happened that with that really large orbit, high altitude above the moon, we were able to pass the Apollo 13 record. But what was more important though, was pushing the boundaries of exploration and sending spacecraft farther than we had ever done before.
Humans haven’t laid foot on the Moon since 1972 during the Apollo 17 mission. But if everything goes according to the plan, NASA’s Orion spacecraft will be the one in charge of carrying the next astronauts on their way to our natural satellite starting in 2025. And if the later mission turns out to be successful, heading over to Mars using a crewed spacecraft will be the next major goal of NASA.
