NASA’s Orion Spacecraft Makes Close Approach to Moon During Artemis Flight

Artemis is NASA’s multiyear program to return astronauts to the surface of the moon as soon as 2025, using hardware from

Boeing Co.

,

Lockheed Martin Corp.

, SpaceX and other companies, and later carry out other exploration missions. 

The current Artemis I mission is designed as an intense flight test of the SLS rocket and the Lockheed Martin-built Orion ship, which in the future would transport astronauts. NASA officials have said the mission has so far proceeded without major hiccups.

Orion’s relatively close approach to the moon Monday occurred after it traveled more than 230,000 miles from Earth, according to NASA. The surface skim followed a two minute and 30-second engine maneuver, or burn, called the outbound-powered flyby. 

The burn, designed to help Orion enter into an orbit the moon, harnessed the moon’s gravitational force to help the vehicle shift into an orbit where it is expected to spend about six days, NASA officials said.

“We’re going to loop around behind it, use gravity to sort of give us a boost,” NASA flight director Zebulon Scoville said Monday on the agency’s live stream. 

NASA said it lost communications with Orion when it was behind the moon for the flyby maneuver, as expected, but reconnected with the vehicle just before 8 a.m. ET.

The agency has been analyzing a couple of issues that emerged on Orion, but those haven’t caused significant effects on the flight, officials have said. For example, the vehicle’s star trackers—sensitive cameras that help Orion maintain proper orientation in space—provided anomalous data during the first days of flight, NASA officials said Friday. The agency has said it understands the readings and didn’t make any operational changes.

Orion has completed other engine maneuvers, and has captured imagery of the Earth and moon, according to NASA. In the vehicle’s cabin, NASA also activated Callisto, a technology demonstration of

Amazon.com Inc.’s

Alexa digital assistant and

Cisco Systems Inc.’s

video-conferencing software. 

Several small research satellites that hitched a ride to space on the upper part of the rocket have been deployed, though researchers have faced problems with some of them, NASA officials said.

On Friday, Orion is slated to perform another major engine burn to insert itself into its lunar orbit for Artemis I, NASA said Monday.

The trajectory, called the distant retrograde orbit, provides the spacecraft with a stable route around the moon where Orion won’t have to use much fuel, NASA has said. Orion is set to travel around 40,000 miles beyond the moon at its farther point while in that orbit. 

For the prospective lunar landing in 2025, Orion would link with a SpaceX-developed Starship lander while orbiting the moon, according to NASA’s current plans. Two astronauts would enter Starship, which would then transport them down to the moon. No one has visited the lunar surface since 1972.