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Washington (AFP) – NASA officials reported that the Orion spacecraft entered lunar orbit on Friday, in a successful procedure for the mission to the Moon that was delayed several times.
A little over a week after the spacecraft’s launch from the state of Florida to the Moon, flight controllers “successfully performed the power-up to insert Orion into a distant retrograde orbit,” the US space agency said on its website. .
The spacecraft would carry astronauts to the surface of the Moon in the next few years, in the first such mission since Apollo in 1972.
This first test flight, without a crew, seeks to ensure that the vehicle is safe.
“The orbit is distant, Orion will fly about 40,000 miles (about 64,300 km) above the Moon,” NASA reported.
While in lunar orbit, flight controllers will monitor key systems and perform deep-space checks, the agency said.
It will take Orion about a week to complete half an orbit around the Moon. It will then leave orbit for its return trip home, according to NASA.
On Saturday, the spacecraft is expected to zoom to about 40,000 miles above the Moon, a record for a habitable capsule.
The spacecraft is expected to return to Earth with a splashdown in the Pacific Ocean scheduled for December 11.
The success of this mission will determine the future of the Artemis 2 mission, which will take astronauts around the Moon without landing, and for Artemis 3, in which humans will finally set foot on the lunar surface.
Those missions are scheduled to take place in 2024 and 2025, respectively.
© 2022 AFP