The Orion spacecraft had a close brush with the surface of the moon on Monday, hugging the moon’s curves 80 kilometers from the surface.
Shortly after orbiting, NASA’s lunar team delivered mind-boggling images that put a record on our place in space: A tiny object rising into the distance was not the usual claw-shaped object cut into the sky.
It was us.
“Looking at this, we see the lives of 8 billion people, all existing on our pale blue dot, our blue stone, our Spaceship Earth,” said Sandra Jones, broadcasting a recent mission control briefing in Houston. “And after a long journey, Orion is now coming home.”
NASA’s Artemis launch puts Orion through a nail-biting test
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The closest approach to the surface included a 3.5-minute engine firing to increase the moon’s speed to more than 650 mph, or 960 feet per second. This maneuver was necessary to give Orion the launch pad it needed to return to Earth and complete the Artemis I experiment.
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Although no one is inside Orion during this 25-day journey, the successful empty spacecraft will pave the way for future astronauts, with a follow-up mission that includes crew members planned from 2024.
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NASA wants to one day build a base around the moon, known as Gateway, and astronauts to a lunar base camp, where it will send the first woman and human to walk on the south side of the moon. There, astronomers will spend a long time researching and collecting samples.
During this time, the agency will keep one eye on the red planet at a distance of about 140 million kilometers. The goal is to use the moon as a training ground to send humans to Mars.
On Monday, NASA lost contact with Orion as expected for half an hour as the spacecraft crossed behind the moon and used its own gravity to accelerate. The moon blocks the signal of NASA’s Deep Space Network, a large radio network from Earth that allows communication with satellites in space. Mission leadership resumed contact with the moonship soon after.
NASA expects the spacecraft to fly over the Pacific Ocean in five days on December 11.
