(Washington) On the third day of its space mission, the performance of the spacecraft Orionen route to the Moon after takeoff from Florida, “exceeded expectations”, welcomed NASA on Friday.
This new capsule should take astronauts to the Moon in the coming years – the first to set foot on its surface since the last Apollo mission in 1972. This first test flight, without a crew on board, should first serve to ensure that the vehicle is safe.
“Today we have gathered to review the performance of the ship Orion […]and it exceeds expectations,” said Mike Sarafin, in charge of this mission called Artemis 1, during a press conference.
The vessel’s four solar panels, about 4 meters long, deployed correctly and “provide more energy” than expected, rejoiced Jim Geffre, responsible for Orion at the Johnson Space Center in Houston. It is there, in Texas, that the control center from which the ship is piloted is located.
Orion is already some 320,000 km from Earth, and is preparing to carry out, using its engines, the first of the four main thrusts programmed during the mission.
This maneuver, which will take place early Monday morning, will bring the spacecraft closer to only about 100 km from the lunar surface, in order to take advantage of its gravitational force. As this will take place behind the far side of the Moon, NASA is expected to lose contact with the craft for approximately 35 minutes.
“We’re going to pass over some of the Apollo landing sites,” said Jeff Radigan, NASA flight director, although these will be in shadow. A video of the flyover will be released later.
Four days later, a second thrust from the engines will place Orion in a distant orbit around the Moon. The ship will go up to 64,000 km behind her – a record for a habitable capsule.
It will then begin the journey back to Earth, with a landing in the Pacific Ocean scheduled for December 11, after just over 25 days of flight.
The success of this mission depends on the future of Artemis 2, which will take astronauts around the Moon without landing, then Artemis 3, which will finally mark the return of humans to the lunar surface. These missions are officially scheduled to take place in 2024 and 2025, respectively.
Mike Sarafin also clarified on Friday that 10 scientific microsatellites had indeed been deployed when the rocket took off, but that half of them were experiencing technical or communication problems. These experiments, carried out separately by independent teams, have no impact on the main mission.