The first close flyby of the moon was made on November 21st, and it came as close as 81 statute miles from the moon's surface. As the Artemis 1 mission's uncrewed spaceship flew past the far side of the Moon, the orbital maneuvering system engine fired for 2 minutes and 30 seconds to put the capsule into a distant retrograde path. Artemis is hunting the Moon and this burn is the largest so far. The outbound flyby burn is the first of two maneuvers needed to get to the far side of the moon. The European Service Module will be used for the next burn. For about a week, the spaceship will remain in this location. The moon will be 40,000 miles away. The greatest distance from the Earth will be on November 28th. The distance is more than 268,500 miles. The greatest distance from the moon will be on November 25th. More than 57,000 miles. This is the farthest a human-rated craft has traveled. There is a good depiction of the unusual trajectory of the mission. I've never come close to understanding orbital mechanics What a fascinating trip home for Orion (Great share @thePrimalSpace) pic.twitter.com/nZmvx2hLrF
The SLS rocket and the ground systems for the Artemis I mission have been reviewed by the team.
Everything has met or exceeded expectations, he said.
"We haven't seen a single thing that would cause us to question any part of the mission."
This is mostly a green light flight. The vehicle systems are clean, but we are working a few funnies, just that some things were operating differently than expected The mission is continuing as planned.
The imagery of the Moon was sent back by the cameras on board the spaceship.
Earthset. ๐@NASA_Orion captured this shot of Earth "setting" while the spacecraft passed close to the Moon. Nearly 270,000 miles (430,000 km) away, #Artemis I will soon surpass Apollo 13's record-setting distance from Earth in a spacecraft designed to carry astronauts. pic.twitter.com/lvDS7nGPRo
โ NASA (@NASA) November 21, 2022
"An Earthrise of our pale blue dot and its 8 billion human inhabitants now coming into view", said Mission Control commentator.
Judd Frieling, the Ascent and Entry Flight Director for Artemis 1, said that they didn't expect to get live-stream video like they did. We will broadcast the livestream from the mission when we have enough bandwidth.
The Artemis 1 flight is the first mission in 50 years where a human- capable vehicle is at the moon. NASA wants to send astronauts back to the moon with the help of the SLS and other hardware.
It's possible that the first lunar landing could happen as early as 25 years from now. The technology that will be needed for future flights is being tested.
On December 5, Frieling said that the lighting will be good enough for the cameras on the moon to take pictures of the Apollo landing sites.
Good views of the hardware left behind will not be seen. LRO has already taken high-resolution views of the Apollo sites, which are not as good as the ones taken by Orion.
The splashdown of Orion is scheduled for December 11.
Engineers have been able to use the cameras on the European Service Module's solar array to assess the exterior of the building. Re-entry has already been given the go-ahead.
A joint effort between the US Navy and NASA will be decided on December 5.
The recovery zone will be in the Pacific Ocean, but the exact landing site will be determined by a number of factors.
This article was published in the past. The original article is worth a read.
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