Today marks the day the uncrewed Orion capsule reaches its final destination, a distant retrograde orbit around the Moon. But, for that to happen, the spacecraft must successfully execute a trajectory correction powerup, which you can watch live here.
NASA coverage begins at 4:30 pm ET, with the trajectory correction scheduled for 4:52 pm ET. You can follow her on NASA TV, YouTube or on the live stream below.
The distant retrograde orbit (DRO) is called “distant” because Orion will travel about 40,000 miles past the Moon before returning. It is a gigantic orbit; so gigantic, in fact, that “it will take six days for the spacecraft to complete half a revolution around the Moon before deorbiting for the return trip to Earth,” according to The NASA. The “retrograde” aspect of the orbit means that the capsule will orbit our natural satellite in the opposite direction to the direction the Moon travels around Earth.
Orion will break the Apollo 13 distance record on Saturday when you are 480 494 km from home. No manned vehicle has traveled that far.
Orion completed its sixth and final departure trajectory correction firing yesterday. The capsule, which began the insertion process in DRO on Monday, November 21, it is currently moving at 4,200 km/h. The NASA briefly and unexpectedly lost contact with Orion on Wednesday, but the capsule has behaved as expected.
Today is the 10th of the mission artemis 1 of 25.5 days, which began with the spectacular inaugural launch of NASA’s Space Launch System (SLS) rocket on Wednesday, November 16. Artemis 1 is meant to demonstrate both SLS and Orion, which still needs to survive atmospheric reentry, at which point it will crash into our atmosphere at speeds reaching Mach 32 (39,199 km/h). During the reentry attempt, Orion’s heat shield will experience temperatures in excess of 2760 degrees Celsius.
But before that can happen, Orion must achieve orbital insertion today and then perform an exit maneuver on December 1 to escape the Moon’s gravitational grip. The act of leaving distant retrograde orbit will require Orion to make another lunar flyby. Orion is expected to touch down in the Pacific Ocean on December 11.
Artemis 1 is the first of what NASA hopes will be a series of increasingly complex missions in the lunar environment. The space agency aims to repeat the current mission, but with astronauts on board, in 2024, and land humans on the Moon later this decade.