NASA's Orion completes first flight around the Moon

 

The Orion spacecraft was carrying a dummy crew of three mannequins.

On December 11, NASA's unmanned Orion spacecraft completed the first mission of the Artemis lunar program, traveling around the Moon and returning 50 years after the last Apollo Moon landing. At 12:09 pm (IST), the gumdrop-shaped Orion spacecraft, carrying a dummy crew of three mannequins equipped with sensors, was to land near Guadalupe Island off the coast of Mexico's Baja California peninsula .

On November 16, Orion was launched from Cape Canaveral at Kennedy Space Center in Florida atop NASA's Large Scale Space Launch System (SLS), the organization's largest rocket since the Saturn V of the Apollo era and now the world's largest. Most powerful rocket.

For Orion's 25-day mission, it was less than a week after reaching its farthest point in space about 127 km above the Moon and about 434,500 km from Earth in a lunar fly-by.


The spacecraft was planned to re-enter Earth's atmosphere at 39,400 kilometers per hour, or more than 30 times the speed of sound, after ejecting the service module of its primary rocket system, and in a rapid 20-minute descent. fell into the sea.

The Artemis program, which intends to send men back to the Moon this decade and establish a viable base there as a step for manned exploration of Mars, was first launched with the SLS-Orion mission.

The events surrounding Artemis I's return to Earth also occurred on December 11, 1972, which marks the 50th anniversary of Gene Cernan and Harrison Schmitt's Apollo 17 lunar landing. He was the last of 12 NASA astronauts to set foot on the Moon during six separate Apollo missions beginning in 1969.

Compared to other spacecraft making more regular descents from the International Space Station (ISS) or other trips from low-Earth orbit, Orion will experience greater heat, speed and force during its return from the Moon.