NASA's Orion spacecraft was placed in lunar orbit Friday, officials said, as the much-delayed Moon mission proceeded successfully.
A little over a week after the spacecraft blasted off from
Florida bound for the Moon, flight controllers "successfully performed a
burn to insert Orion into a distant retrograde orbit," the US space agency
said on its website.
The spacecraft is to take astronauts to the Moon in the
coming years — the first to set foot on its surface since the last Apollo
mission in 1972.
This first test flight, without a crew on board, aims to
ensure that the vehicle is safe.
"The orbit is distant in that Orion will fly about
40,000 miles above the Moon," NASA said.
While in lunar orbit, flight controllers will monitor key
systems and perform checkouts while in the environment of deep space, the
agency said.
It will take Orion about a week to complete half an orbit
around the Moon. It will then exit the orbit for the return journey home,
according to NASA.
On Saturday, the ship is expected to go up to 40,000 miles
beyond the Moon, a record for a habitable capsule. The current record is held
by the Apollo 13 spacecraft at 248,655 miles (400,171 km) from Earth.
It will then begin the journey back to Earth, with a landing
in the Pacific Ocean scheduled for December 11, after just over 25 days of
flight.
The success of this mission will determine the future of the
Artemis 2 mission, which will take astronauts around the Moon without landing,
then Artemis 3, which will finally mark the return of humans to the lunar
surface.
Those missions are scheduled to take place in 2024 and 2025,
respectively.