NASA¡¯s Orion Spacecraft Successfully Executes Fly By To The Moon

NASA¡¯s Orion spacecraft has successfully executed a key manoeuvre of its maiden journey to the moon, getting as close as 81 miles to the lunar surface.

NASA

The spacecraft executed four trajectory correction burns on its journey to the Moon, however, what was different this time was that the orbital manoeuvring system engine fired for two minutes and thirty seconds. This boosted Orion at a rate of over 580 miles per hour.

During this time, the uncrewed spacecraft was travelling at a speed of 5,023 miles per hour, roughly 238 miles over the Moon. Briefly, after the burn, this came to 81 miles over the lunar surface and it was travelling at 5,102 miles per hour.

This flyby was one of the two essential manoeuvres for Orion to switch to its retrograde orbit around the Moon. Next on the list is a distant retrograde orbit insertion burn that¡¯s scheduled for Friday around 4:52 PM ET or around 3:22 AM IST on Saturday.

Orion will remain in this orbit for a week where it will test its plethora of systems, which includes navigation, guidance, power, comms and thermal control. The distant retrograde orbit will take Orion 40,000 miles past the moon. The spacecraft is scheduled to return back to Earth on December 11.

This journey however hasn¡¯t been one without issues. Engineers have been looking into RAM faults in the star tracker system and has resolved it with power cycles.

NASA

Another team looked at an issue causing one of the eight service mobile units offering solar power to the crew module to open on a few occasions without command. NASA however highlighted that there was no impact on the mission due to these issues.

NASA will shed more light on flyby burn along with updates on post-launch assessments for the SLS rocket and Exploration Ground Systems at a press conference scheduled for next week Monday at 5:00 PM ET or around 3:30 AM IST (on Tuesday).

Keep visiting Indiatimes.com for the latest science and technology news