In the course of NASA’s “Artemis 1” lunar mission, the unmanned “Orion” capsule (pictured above) is on its way home. On Thursday, she started her engines and swung out of orbit around the moon, as the US space agency NASA announced. On Monday, she will fly close to Earth’s satellite again on her test flight before landing on Earth on Dec. 11.
About a week ago, the capsule entered orbit about 50,000 miles from the moon and then flew halfway around it. Because of the great distance, it took her about six days. “Orion” flew around the moon in a direction opposite to that in which the moon revolves around the earth. According to NASA, this orbit had the advantage of being very stable and “Orion” using relatively little fuel on it.
After months of delays, the mission “Artemis 1” took off for a first test launch on November 16 (local time). Aboard the Space Launch System (SLS) rocket, the Orion capsule lifted off from the Cape Canaveral cosmodrome in Florida.
With the ‘Artemis’ program, named after the Greek goddess of the moon, American astronauts should land on the moon again in the coming years, including a woman and a non-white person for the first time.
Source: Krone
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