WASHINGTON: On Friday, NASA officials said that the Orion spacecraft is “exceeding performance expectations” three days after it took off from Florida heading for the Moon. The launch occurred on Monday.
In the next years, the spaceship will transport men to the moon, making them the first humans to step foot on the lunar surface since the Apollo program’s last flight in 1972.
The purpose of this maiden test flight, which will take place without a crew on board, is to guarantee that the vehicle is risk-free.
Mike Sarafin, the leader of the Artemis 1 mission, said that they had a meeting today to examine the performance of the Orion spacecraft and that it was “exceeding performance expectations.”
Jim Geffre, the manager of Orion at the Johnson Space Center in Houston, said that the spacecraft’s four solar arrays, each measuring around 13 feet (four meters) in length, have successfully deployed and are delivering more energy than was anticipated.
This command center is located in Texas, and it is from there that the spaceship is being navigated.
Orion is now around 200,000 miles (320,000 kilometers) from Earth and is getting set to undertake the first of four big thrusts that are anticipated to be performed using its engines throughout the mission.
In order to make use of the Moon’s gravitational attraction, this maneuver, which will take place early on Monday morning, will put the spacecraft around 80 miles (130 kilometers) closer to the lunar surface than it has ever been before.
It is anticipated that NASA will be out of touch with the spacecraft for a period of roughly 35 minutes as a result of this event taking place on the far side of the Moon.
According to the flight director, Jeff Radigan, “We will be going over several of the Apollo landing sites,” despite the fact that these areas will be under darkness. NASA plans to make the video of the flyby available to the public.
Orion will enter a distant orbit around the Moon when the engines are fired up for the second time, which will take occur four days later.
The habitable capsule will break the record for distance traveled by traveling up to 40,000 miles beyond the Moon.
After that, it will start making its way down to Earth and is now projected to touch down in the Pacific Ocean on December 11, after having been in space for a little over 25 days.
If this mission is successful, then it will pave the way for Artemis 2, which will send people on a circumlunar flight around the moon without landing, and then Artemis 3, which would eventually signal the return of humans to the surface of the moon.
The years 2024 and 2025 have been earmarked for the execution of these tasks, respectively.
On Friday, Sarafin also reported that 10 research micro-satellites had been launched simultaneously with the rocket, but that half of them were encountering difficulties with their technology or their communications.
Despite this, the primary goal will not be affected in any way by the tests that are being conducted concurrently by various groups.
