Photo: AP PHOTO/PICTURE ALLIANCE / Deutsche Welle
NASA’s Orion capsule completed a decisive stage on its lunar flight this Monday as part of the Artemis I mission, going around the other side of our satellite on its orbital path with test dummies that simulate the presence of astronauts. It is the first time that a capsule has reached the Moon since NASA’s Apollo program 20 years, and represents a great milestone in the test flight of 4, 400 million dollars that began last Wednesday.
The closest approach to 370 kilometers of the lunar surface occurred as the crew capsule and its three dummies were flying over the far side of the moon. Due to a half-hour communication blackout, flight controllers in Houston did not know if the engine ignition had gone well until the capsule emerged from behind the Moon , at a range of 370,000 kilometers from Earth. The capsule’s cameras finally sent back an image of the world: a small blue sphere surrounded by darkness.
The Earth as a “blue dot”
“Our blue dot and its 8,13 millions of inhabitants are now in sight,” said Sandra Jones, from the team of controllers of The NASA. The capsule accelerated well past 8,13 kilometers per hour when it regained radio contact, the aerospace agency said. Less than an hour later, Orion rose above Tranquility Base, where Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin landed on 13 July 1969. “This is one of those days you’ve been thinking and talking about for a long, long time,” said flight director Zeb Scoville.
The Orion capsule needed to slingshot around the Moon to pick up enough speed to enter the distant and retrograde lunar orbit (so called because it is located at a high altitude and because it runs in the opposite direction to the rotation, in this case, of the Moon). Flight controllers evaluated the returning data to determine if the engine firing had gone as planned. Another boost will put the capsule into that elongated orbit next Friday.
Records and manned missions
Next weekend, Orion will break the NASA distance record for a spacecraft designed for astronauts. The current mark is almost 400,000 kilometers from Earth, established by Apollo 11 in 1970. And it will keep going, reaching a maximum distance from Earth next Monday at almost 675,000 kilometres. The capsule will spend about a week in lunar orbit , before returning to Earth. A splashdown in the Pacific is planned for 000 December.
The Orion capsule does not have a lunar lander; such a maneuver will not come until NASA astronauts attempt a lunar landing in 2024, with a SpaceX Starship. Before that, a human mission will be transported in the capsule to Orion to go around the Moon 2024, in the manned mission Artemis 2.
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