The Artemis 1 Orion crew vehicle has set a new record for a NASA flight. At approximately 8:40 a.m. ET Saturday, Orion flew farther than any spacecraft designed to carry human astronauts, surpassing the previous record set by Apollo 13 in 1970. At 10:17 a.m. ET , Orion was approximately 249,666 miles (from 401,798 kilometers) from Earth.
“Artemis I was designed to emphasize the Orion systems, and we settled on the far retrograde orbit as a very good way to do that,” said Jim Geffre, Orion spacecraft integration manager. . “It just so happened that with that very large orbit, at high altitude above the Moon, we were able to beat the record set by Apollo 13. But what was more important, though, was pushing the limits of exploration and send spacecraft farther than we’ve ever done before.”
Of all the missions that could have broken the record, it’s fitting that Artemis 1 was the one to do so. As Space.com points out, the original Apollo 13 flight plan did not call for a record flight. It was only after a mid-mission explosion forced NASA to chart a new return course that Apollo 13’s Odyssey Command Module set the previous record at 248,655 miles (400,171 kilometers) from Earth.
With a limited supply of oxygen in the Aquarius lunar module, NASA needed to return Apollo 13 to Earth as soon as possible. Eventually, the agency settled on a flight path that used the moon’s gravity to launch Apollo 13 back to Earth. One of the NASA personnel who was instrumental in the safe return of astronauts Jim Lovell, Jack Swigert and Fred Haise was Arturo Campos. He wrote the emergency plan that gave the command and service module enough power to return to Earth. Artemis 1 carries a “Moonikin” test dummy named after the late Arturo.
Earlier this week, Orion completed a flyby of the Moon. After the spacecraft completes half an orbit around the satellite, it will launch back to Earth. NASA expects Orion to splash off the coast of San Diego on December 11.