Since taking off aboard the Space Launch System rocket last Wednesday, NASA’s Orion spacecraft has had a remarkably smooth journey. But it’s far from over. As millions of Americans prepare for a long weekend with family and friends, Orion will continue its 25-day mission, including performing a critical burn on Friday to enter a distant retrograde orbit around the moon.
Orion is eight days into its 25-day journey around the moon. The capsule is a cornerstone of NASA’s Artemis program, which aims to return humans to the moon by the end of the decade and, in the long run, make our presence there permanent. Orion’s mission has been named Artemis I, reflecting both the start of the Artemis program and the finally operational capsule.
The journey was not without problems, although these were relatively minor. Perhaps the most substantial occurred very early this morning, when NASA unexpectedly lost data connection to the spacecraft for 47 minutes. Engineers are still trying to figure out why this happened, but the data has been recovered with no impact on Orion.
So what exactly does the rest of this week have in store for Orion? Well, quite a lot.
At the moment, the spacecraft is on its way to a distant retrograde orbit (DRO). The orbit is so named because of its elevation from the lunar surface and because the orbit moves in a direction opposite to the moon’s orbit around the Earth. DRO is considered very stable and therefore little fuel is required for a spacecraft to maintain its position in orbit.
On Friday, Orion will perform the DRO insertion burn using the European Service Module, the spacecraft’s propulsion and propulsion components built by the European Space Agency. The next day, Orion will set a new record for farthest distance traveled by a human-rated spacecraft, a journey of 248,655 miles from Earth. The spacecraft will reach its maximum distance from Earth on Monday, at 268,552 miles.
Orion will remain in DRO for about a week, during which time spacecraft systems will be tested.
Artemis mission manager Mike Sarafin described the mission in April as a “true stress test” of the spacecraft in the deep space environment.
“With no crew aboard the first mission, DRO will allow Orion to spend more time in deep space for a rigorous mission to ensure spacecraft systems, such as guidance, navigation, communications, power, thermal control, and others are ready. to protect astronauts during future manned missions,” he said.
Beyond this point, Orion will have to perform two more critical burns, the first to depart from DRO and the second to orbit back around the Moon and send the spacecraft back on a trajectory back to Earth. The grand finale comes when Orion returns to Earth. The capsule is expected to experience temperatures of up to 5,000 degrees Fahrenheit upon reentry, and NASA needs to ensure the spacecraft is ready before it is used to fly astronauts later this decade.
