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- Jonathan Amos
- BBC News Science Reporter
Credit, NASA
The Orion capsule looking at the Moon and Earth on Monday
NASA’s Orion capsule has reached an important milestone in its mission around the Moon.
On Monday (28/11), it reached a distance of about 430,000 km from Earth – the farthest that any spacecraft designed to transport humans has traveled.
The capsule is unmanned. But if she completes the current flight without incident, there will be astronauts on board on the next trip in two years’ time.
NASA is planning a series of increasingly complex missions with Orion.
They are part of the agency’s Artemis program, which aims to return astronauts to the lunar surface after a 50-year gap.
The milestone reached on Monday represents the halfway point of the mission.
“The halfway point offers us an opportunity to step back and then look at what our margins are and where we could be a little smarter to reduce risk and understand spacecraft performance for a manned flight on the next mission.” , says Mike Sarafin, NASA’s Artemis mission manager.
Orion is being propelled through space by a service module provided by the European Space Agency (ESA). This vehicle incorporates the large thrusters necessary for maneuvering.
Credit, NASA
There are no astronauts on board, just a few mannequins equipped with sensors and a plush Snoopy (orange), which is the mission’s mascot.
Esa’s lander fired its engines last week to put Orion on a trajectory around the moon known as a far retrograde orbit.
It’s called “distant” because the trajectory places Orion far from the Moon’s surface (61,000 km) and “retrograde” because it sends the capsule in the opposite direction to the direction the lunar body is moving.
It will take two more maneuvers over the next few days to get the capsule on the correct trajectory to return to Earth.
The spacecraft is expected to crash into the Pacific Ocean near San Diego, California on December 11.
Credit, NASA
Illustration shows the capsule being tested without astronauts at this time
The controllers are happy with their performance so far. Orion, with its Esa driver module, used much less fuel than expected. It also generated more power than anticipated, as well as being quite economical with its power consumption.
The previous record for the furthest point reached by a spacecraft to carry astronauts was set by the Apollo-13 mission in April 1970.
It arrived 400,171 km from Earth as its crew struggled to return home after an explosion in the capsule’s service module.
One of the mannequins aboard Orion was nicknamed “Commander Moonikin Campos” after Arturo Campos, a NASA engineer who played a key role in helping to bring the troubled Apollo 13 back.
The first manned Artemis mission is currently scheduled for late 2024. An Orion flight in which astronauts would descend to the lunar surface could take place as early as 2025 or 2026.
“Of course, Artemis is based on Apollo,” says NASA Administrator Bill Nelson.
“Not only are we going further and home faster, Artemis is paving the way for living and working in deep space in a hostile environment, for inventing, creating and ultimately moving humans to Mars.”
