Artemis 1 Orion spacecraft hits halfway point of epic moon mission

The halfway point of NASA's moon mission was hit in good shape.

The 13th flight day of the Artemis 1 mission was marked on Monday.

NASA officials said that the Nov. 16 launch was nearly flawless and that the spaceship has hit its marks in deep space.

Howard Hu, NASA's Orion program manager, said in a press briefing on Monday afternoon that he was happy with the performance of the craft so far.

There are amazing views of the Artemis 1 moon rocket debut.

NASA officials said on Monday that the Artemis 1 team is considering adding seven more test objectives to the mission that would help further understand the capsule's thermal environment.

That's not to say that the mission went well. The team traced the anomalies back to the capsule's power system. A configuration issue with NASA's Deep Space Network of radio dishes caused the team to lose contact with the spaceship.

NASA officials said there's no reason to be concerned because the Artemis 1 team members are still working through a few other issues.

"None of the anomalies or funnies that are out there are consequences," Artemis mission manager Mike Sarafin said during Monday's briefing.

After taking a long and looping trip to the moon, it was finally arrived in a retrograde position on Friday. The maximum distance from Earth that the spaceship will be able to reach in the mission was reached on Monday.

Humans have never been carried far from home in a spaceship. The previous record was set in 1970 by NASA's Apollo 13 mission, which was supposed to land on the moon but had to return to Earth due to a serious problem in flight.

The main engine of the spaceship will start the journey back to Earth. The Artemis 1 mission will come to a close if all goes well.

NASA and the U.S. Navy are getting ready for the mission.

The team will deploy Tuesday for training at sea before returning to shore to make final preparations for the splashdown.

NASA plans to launch astronauts around the moon on Artemis 2 in 2024. The Artemis 3 mission will land astronauts near the moon.

A book about the search for alien life was written by Mike Wall. You can follow him on the social networking site. We encourage you to follow us on social networking sites.