Orion craft finishes closest approach to moon
NASA’s Orion spacecraft skirted past the moon Monday morning, the closest a human-rated craft has been to the moon since the last Apollo mission in 1972.
NASA’s Artemis I Orion spacecraft completed a powered flyby maneuver on the far side of the moon bringing it just 81 miles above the lunar surface at 7:57 a.m. ET, the start of its maneuvering to orbit the moon. A second “burn” scheduled for Friday will put Orion in its final distant retrograde orbit around the moon.
“This is one of those days that you’ve been thinking about and dreaming about for a long, long time,” NASA flight director Zebulon Scoville said during Monday’s livestream of the event. “This morning we saw the Earth set behind the moon as we take the next humanrated vehicle around the moon preparing to bring humans back there within a few years.”
“This is (a) game changer,” he said. Monday’s flyby was powered by Orion’s Orbital Maneuvering System (OMS) engine. Four of these burns are planned during the 26-day Artemis I mission to the moon and back.
Orion’s Orbital Maneuvering System engine is a recycled piece of space shuttle hardware. The repurposed engine flying for the first time on Orion previously flew on 19 space shuttle flights from October 1984 to October 2002.
Orion has been flying an outbound trajectory from Earth to the moon since launching in spectacular fashion aboard NASA’s most powerful rocket ever built, the Space Launch System, on Wednesday.
During the livestream, NASA spokesperson Sandra Jones said the outbound powered flyby was necessary to bring Orion “close enough to the lunar surface to leverage the moon’s gravitational force and swing the spacecraft around the moon toward entry into distant retrograde orbit.”
Monday’s closest lunar approach flyby transitioned the Artemis I mission into its next phase.
“Standing on the shoulders of the giants of the Apollo generation, Orion now carries forward the torch of the Artemis generation as it emerges from behind the moon and Earthrise of our pale blue dot and its 8 billion human inhabitants coming into view,” said Jones as Orion emerged from behind the moon after the completion of the burn with Earth in full view.
Orion will spend roughly five days flying beyond the moon. On Friday Orion is set to complete an insertion burn to position itself to enter into a distant retrograde orbit beyond the moon. The deep space orbit is elliptical in shape, meaning that Orion will travel about 30,000 miles further than any previously recorded distance a humanrated spacecraft has traveled. The orbit is retrograde, meaning that Orion will travel in the opposite direction of the moon’s rotation.
Orion will travel for another six or so days beyond that to complete a half orbit around the moon. Orion’s greatest distance from the Earth will happen at 4:05 p.m. ET Monday at more than 268,500 miles away.
That will break a record set by NASA’s Apollo 13 mission in 1970.