NASA's Orion Spacecraft Makes Moon Flyby

WASHINGTON (Sputnik) - The Orion spacecraft has passed around the far side of the moon, reaching about 81 miles (130 kilometers) from its surface and completing a key step in NASA's mission to return astronauts there, the space agency announced on Monday.

"Orion re-acquired signal with NASA’s Deep Space Network, at 7:59 a.m. EST after successfully performing the outbound powered flyby burn at 7:44 a.m. EST with a firing of the orbital maneuvering system engine for 2 minutes and 30 seconds to accelerate the spacecraft at a rate of more than 580 mph," NASA said in a statement.

At the time of the burn, Orion was about 328 miles (530 km) above the Moon, but flight controllers did not know if it had been completed successfully until the capsule emerged from behind the moon.

"Shortly after the burn, Orion passed 81 miles above the Moon, traveling at 5,102 mph. At the time of the lunar flyby, Orion was more than 230,000 miles from Earth," the statement added.

Fly-by complete!@NASA_Orion completed its closest fly-by of the Moon this morning, 81 miles above the lunar surface, traveling 5,102 mph. Before the fly-by, we conducted an outbound powered fly-by burn, increasing speed at a rate of more than 580 mph: https://t.co/gqViM3BJLg pic.twitter.com/9IUkQUj4pf

— Jim Free (@JimFree) November 21, 2022

The unmanned Artemis 1 mission is key step toward NASA's goal of crewed lunar flights of the Orion spacecraft, with the first of them, Artemis 2, scheduled to launch in 2024. Artemis 2 is expected to be the first manned lunar mission since Apollo 17 in 1972, which is the most recent time people landed on the Moon.