Thanks to a new successful maneuver on November 25, the Orion capsule continues its Artemis I mission currently orbiting the Moon. She takes the opportunity to continue her tests and take poetic shots before starting the return trip… To our delight!
For the teams, there is no question of relaxing their attention.
go the distance
The Artemis I mission continues, even if the teams of the American agency are no longer in the frenzy of the first maneuvers. On November 25, the Orion capsule fired up its main engine to place itself in retrograde distant orbit around the Moon. Enough to observe it from (very) far away, between 69,000 and 86,000 kilometers from the Selene surface.
Orion only stays there for a few days, the time for a few observations, orientation tests and communication or trajectory checks: from this Thursday 1er December, the capsule will brake and adopt a new elliptical orbit, which will allow it another braking maneuver at a lower cost to head for Earth. The return, already? Yes, but the demonstration mission fulfills all its objectives for the moment.
A record before the return?
Moreover, it is today, November 28, that Artemis I passes its most distant point in relation to Earth, more than 430,000 kilometers. A record, in fact, for a habitable capsule… In any case, this is what NASA announces. This generated some discussion, the Apollo 10 lunar module having been much farther in heliocentric orbit, while Apollo 13, if it stayed closer, did indeed have astronauts on board, which is not the case today. What must be remembered above all is that everything works despite the hundreds of thousands of kilometres… Including, as we can see, the cameras placed at the end of the service module’s solar panels.
It should be noted that on the ground, the teams are in the process of completing the final assessment of the damage linked to the take-off. It seems that the first shot of the Space Launch System (SLS) damaged the mobile launch tower more than expected. However NASA has communicated the initial results showing that there was a priori no major or structural damage.
Source : NASA
2