Orion nears farthest distance from Earth on Artemis I mission

ORLANDO, FLA. >> NASA officials said the Orion spacecraft was approaching its farthest distance from Earth on Monday, two days after breaking a record set by Apollo 13.

On Saturday, Orion, which launched atop the Space Launch System rocket from Kennedy Space Center on Nov. 16, surpassed the previous record of 248,655 miles from the planet, which was the farthest away from Earth astronauts Jim Lovell, John Swigert and Fred Haise traveled during their aborted 1970 moon-landing mission.

The uncrewed Orion, which has three mannequin passengers on board, was set to travel to 268,554 miles from Earth by 4:48 p.m., as part of the capsule’s distant retrograde orbit, or DRO, around the moon.

Retrograde means the orbiting spacecraft circles the moon opposite the moon’s spin and orbit of the Earth. Orion’s lunar orbit will reach nearly 40,000 miles from the moon’s surface.

Orion entered DRO on Friday after having performed a slingshot around the moon on its closest approach last week, coming in about 81 miles from the surface.

NASA plans to have Orion complete one-half of this orbit, so that on Thursday, NASA managers look to fire up its engines again to bring it back down for a close approach to the lunar surface. It will then approach and swing back around the moon on Dec. 5 to begin a return on a speedy trajectory to Earth for a splashdown in the Pacific Ocean on Dec. 11.

The No. 1 milestone for the mission is to prove Orion’s heat shields can withstand reentry. The expected speed of 24,500 mph that would generate near 5,000 degrees would also set a record for human-rated spacecraft.

If all goes well, NASA can move forward with its planned crewed orbital mission to the moon, Artemis II.

“Nothing until this flight gets back safely,” NASA astronaut Stan Love said ahead of liftoff at Kennedy Space Center. “I would expect in the spring of 2023, we would hear who’s going to be on the next one.”

Love expects to be named a capsule communicator, or CAPCOM, from mission control in Houston for Artemis II, and work has been rolling on it for months.