On flight day 9, Orion’s interior shows the Callisto payload visualization. Callisto is Lockheed Martin’s technology demonstration in partnership with Amazon and Cisco, testing voice-activated and video technology that can help future astronauts on deep space missions. Credit: NASA
Artemis I launched on Nov. 16, with the powerful Space Launch System rocket carrying Orion from Launch Pad 39B at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida at 1:47 a.m. EST. Later that day, Orion sent back an image of Earth as the spacecraft made its journey away from our planet. On the third day of its Artemis I journey, the Orion spacecraft was more than halfway to the Moon, and a review showed it was exceeding performance expectations. The 5th saw Orion enter the lunar sphere of influence, and the spacecraft captured stunning views during a close lunar flyby on the 6th. On the 8th, Orion exited the lunar sphere of influence and the day 10 entered a distant retrograde orbit. On the 11th it set a record by surpassing the distance Apollo 13 reached from Earth, and on the 13th it reached the maximum distance it will reach from Earth during the mission.
During Flight Day 14, NASA engineers continued the flight test objective of developing aircraft firing that began on Flight Day 12. Today, the teams demonstrated the “low” part of the reaction control thruster’s firing time range. This test target is designed to exercise Orion’s reaction control system jets in a different configuration to model how the thrusters will be used during the Artemis II mission, improving NASA’s understanding of spacecraft operations spaceships before they have crew on board.
As part of planned tests throughout the mission, the Guidance, Navigation and Control Officer, also known as GNC, conducted the sixth of eight planned tests of the star trackers that support the navigation system d ‘Orion. Star trackers are a navigational tool that measure the position of the stars to help the spacecraft determine its orientation. Star trackers continue to provide excellent data to develop our necessary navigation solutions.
Engineers will characterize the alignment between the star trackers that are part of the Guidance, Navigation and Control System and Orion’s inertial measurement units, exposing different areas of the spacecraft to the Sun and activating the star trackers in different thermal states to determine if the temperature differences induce any change. The inertial measurement units contain three devices, called gyroscopes, which are used to measure the rotation rates of the spacecraft body, and three accelerometers used to measure the accelerations of the spacecraft.
Artemis All Access is your look at the latest on Artemis I, the people and technology behind the mission, and what’s next. This unmanned flight test around the Moon will pave the way for a manned flight test and future human lunar exploration as part of Artemis. Credit: NASA
A new flight test objective was added on flight day 14 to collect additional information on Orion’s thermal characterization. For most of the mission, Orion is typically in a sun-tail attitude, meaning the solar arrays face the sun to generate power. This flight test objective intentionally orients Orion out of a perfect tail-to-sun attitude by up to 20 degrees in order to evaluate the spacecraft and collect additional data. Currently, when Orion is out of suntail attitude for more than three hours, a ten-hour suntail recovery period is required. This additional flight test objective will help engineers understand Orion’s thermal performance range for incorporation into Artemis II and beyond.
Time in distant retrograde orbit allows engineers to test the spacecraft and its systems in a deep space environment before future crewed missions. Distant retrograde orbit is a highly stable orbit where little fuel is needed to remain for an extended period. While visiting a distant retrograde orbit allows engineers to take advantage of an orbit that was studied extensively as part of the mission planned for previous agency efforts, the future Artemis mission will visit different orbits.
On Artemis II, four Orion astronauts will travel around the Moon and fly several thousand miles above the lunar far side before returning to Earth. In Artemis III, Artemis’ first mission to the lunar surface, Orion will venture into a nearly rectilinear halo orbit, an orbit balanced between Earth’s gravity and that of the Moon that hangs almost like a necklace from the moon The orbit provides access to the South Pole of the Moon, where 13 candidate landing regions have been identified for future Artemis missions.
Shortly after 4 p.m. CST, Orion was more than 264,000 miles (425,000 km) from Earth and nearly 46,000 miles (74,000 km) from the Moon, cruising at 1,790 mph (2,880 km/h).
Watch the latest episode of Artemis All Access to learn more about Orion’s journey so far.