The Artemis 1 Orion spacecraft leaves lunar orbit to return home
NASA’s Artemis 1 Orion spacecraft returns home.
The unmanned ones Orion spacecraft successfully completed a lunar exit burn on Thursday (December 1) to begin its return home after a successful. moon orbits The burn began at 4:54 pm EST (2154 GMT) and lasted just under two minutes, according to NASA television commentator Shaneequa Vereen.
“Orion has had a successful, nominal burn of 1 minute 45 seconds, exiting into a distant retrograde orbit,” Vereen announced during the agency’s broadcast of the burn. The spacecraft’s solar panels could be seen gently rocking back and forth in the live NASA Television broadcast as a “small land” glowed in the background.
Orion now begins its ten-day trek home. If all goes according to plan, the capsule will splash down in the Pacific Ocean off the coast of California on December 11. NASA and the US Navy have already begun training for the recovery operation that will mark the end of the Artemis 1 mission.
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Live Updates: NASA’s Artemis 1 moon mission
Orion launched above the NASA massif Space launch system (SLS) in a fiery display on Nov. 16, kicking off the space agency’s long-awaited Artemis 1 mission to the moon.
The mission is the first of the agency’s Artemis program, which aims to establish a sustainable manned lunar outpost near the moon’s south pole by the end of the decade.
The first Artemis mission was intended as a test for both the SLS vehicle and the Orion spacecraft to ensure that both are flyable and safe to carry human crews into deep space. If Artemis 1 goes as planned, the next mission, Artemis 2will launch astronauts into orbit around the Moon in 2024. NASA will return astronauts to the Moon no earlier than 2025 with Artemis 3.
So far, Artemis 1 has met its benchmarks, according to NASA. Mission administrators announced Wednesday (November 30) that the November 16 launch of SLS he showed the vehicle performed exactly as planned.
“The first launch of the Space Launch System rocket was simply mind-blowing,” said Artemis Mission Manager Mike Sarafin. “While our mission with Orion is still ongoing and we continue to learn throughout our flight, the rocket’s systems performed as designed and as expected in all cases,” he added.
in photos: Incredible views of the debut of NASA’s Artemis 1 moon rocket
Orion, meanwhile, has also behaved wonderfully, by all accounts. An important milestone, the insertion of the spacecraft into a distant retrograde orbit around the Moon, it was achieved on November 25.
With today’s burn, Orion now has a long and lonely journey home, and will certainly send home. beautiful pictures and footage as he has done throughout his flight so far.
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