To the moon & back
NASA aces key orbit test for crewed flight
We’re one step closer to the next moonwalk.
NASA’s Artemis 1 Orion capsule returned to Earth on Sunday afternoon, ending its 25-day test flight around the moon — 50 years to the day of the Apollo program’s last moon landing.
The capsule — with no crew aboard — made an ocean splashdown at 12:40 p.m. EST off Mexican state of Baja California, hurtling some 239,000 miles between the moon and Earth.
Orion’s 25,000 mph reentry coincided with the 50th anniversary of the last lunar landing by Apollo 17 astronauts Eugene Cernan and Harrison Schmitt on Dec. 11, 1972.
Artemis 1 is the first US mission to the moon ever since.
After years of setbacks, the craft blasted off Nov. 16 from Kennedy Space Center as part of NASA’s Space Launch System — the biggest and most powerful NASA rocket since the Saturn V of the Apollo era.
The capsule took a 20-minute plunge at 24,500 mph into Earth’s atmosphere and shedded its service module, a housing for its main rocket system contributed by the European Space Agency.
Taking the heat
Testing whether Orion’s newly designed heat shield withstands atmospheric friction upon reentry — which causes temperatures to rise to nearly 5,000 degrees Fahrenheit — was the top priority of the Artemis I, according to mission manager Mike Sarafin.
“It is our priority-one objective,” Sarafin said at a briefing last week. “There is no arc-jet or aerothermal facility here on Earth capable of replicating hypersonic reentry with a heat shield of this size.”
The Artemis program was named after Apollo’s twin sister in Greek mythology.
With Orion’s safe landing, NASA officials will be able to use data from the mission to prepare for the Artemis II mission — which will put astronauts on the spacecraft for another trip around the moon.
An Artemis II flight could take off as early as 2024, with a lunar landing in either 2025 or 2026.