NASA’s moon-bound Orion space capsule fired its major engine for the primary time about eight hours after the launch of the Artemis 1 mission to regulate its trajectory and take a look at the system.
The capsule was lofted to space by the large Space Launch System rocket from NASA’s Kennedy Area Heart in Florida early Wednesday morning (Nov. 16). The rocket’s second stage put the capsule on a trajectory towards the moon about two hours after liftoff. Nonetheless, to good the trail and to be sure that Orion‘s personal maneuvering system works as designed, the capsule carried out a deliberate engine burn shortly earlier than 10 a.m. EST (1500 GMT) on Wednesday.
Orion’s major maneuvering engine, positioned at the back of the capsule’s Europe-made service module, is a legacy know-how from NASA’s space shuttle program and flew on 19 Â shuttle missions between 1984 and 2002.Â
Associated: Artemis 1 launch photos: Amazing views of NASA’s moon rocket debut (gallery)Â
The burn, dubbed the Outbound Trajectory Correction (OTC) maneuver, lasted solely 30 seconds and went off with no hitch. The capsule will now spend six days cruising towards Earth’s pure satellite, which it’ll cross at an in depth distance of solely 60 miles (100 kilometers) on Monday (Nov. 21).Â
On the identical day, Orion will hearth its major engine once more to place itself on a path to enter a so-called distant retrograde orbit across the moon, an elliptical orbit which is able to take the spacecraft so far as 40,000 miles (64,000 kilometers) away from the moon.Â
Throughout its time within the distant retrograde orbit, Orion will break a report for the farthest distance any human-rated spacecraft has ever flown from Earth. Orion will get to a most of about 298,565 miles (480,000 km) away from the planet, smashing a mark set by the Apollo 13 mission in 1970. The Apollo 13 report, nevertheless, was a byproduct of an emergency rescue operation that saved the lives of the crew after the Apollo spacecraft suffered an onboard explosion.
Orion may also use its major engine to exit the moon’s orbit on Nov. 28 and propel itself again house. If all goes properly, the spacecraft will splash down within the Pacific Ocean off the coast of California on Dec. 11.Â
Throughout its journey, Orion will maintain taking images of itself and the encompassing space utilizing 16 cameras mounted on its construction.Â
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