NASA / ESA - Orion Crew Vehicle patch.
Nov. 24, 2022
Orion is now about one day away from entering into a distant retrograde orbit around the Moon. The orbit is “distant” in the sense that it’s at a high altitude approximately 50,000 miles from the surface of the Moon. Due to the distance, the orbit is so large that it will take the spacecraft six days to complete half of a revolution around the Moon before exiting the orbit for the return journey back to Earth.
During the last day in the transit to distant retrograde orbit, flight controllers performed a third in a series of planned star tracker development flight tests relative to the Sun, with a fourth planned for tomorrow. Star trackers are a navigation tool that measure the positions of stars to help the spacecraft determine its orientation. In the first three flight days, engineers evaluated initial data to understand star tracker readings correlated to thruster firings.
Image above: On Flight Day 8, NASA’s Orion spacecraft remains two days away from reaching its distant retrograde orbit. The Moon is in view as Orion snaps a selfie using a camera mounted on one of its solar array at 10:57 p.m. EST. Image Credit: NASA.
The spacecraft completed its sixth outbound trajectory correction burn at 3:52 p.m. CST, firing the European Service Module’s auxiliary engines for 17 seconds to propel the spacecraft at 8.9 feet per second. This is the final trajectory correction before entering distant retrograde orbit. When in lunar orbit, Orion will perform three orbital maintenance burns to keep the spacecraft on course.
Overnight, engineers will begin a 24-hour test of the reaction control system engines to evaluate engine performance for standard and non-standard thruster configurations. This test will provide data to inform procedures and ensure that the reaction control thrusters can control Orion’s orientation in an alternate configuration if there is an issue with the primary configuration.
Just after 1:42 p.m. CST on Nov. 24, Orion was traveling 222,993 miles from Earth and 55,819 miles from the Moon, cruising at 2,610 miles per hour.
NASA Television coverage of the distant retrograde orbit insertion burn, scheduled for 4:30 p.m. EST on Friday, Nov. 25. The burn is scheduled to take place at 4:52 p.m.
Related articles:
Latest Updates from Artemis I
https://orbiterchspacenews.blogspot.com/2022/11/latest-updates-from-artemis-i.html
Artemis I – Flight Day Six: Orion Performs Lunar Flyby, Closest Outbound Approach
https://orbiterchspacenews.blogspot.com/2022/11/artemis-i-flight-day-six-orion-performs.html
Artemis powering past the Moon
https://orbiterchspacenews.blogspot.com/2022/11/artemis-powering-past-moon.html
Orion Successfully Completes Lunar Flyby, Re-acquires Signal with Earth
https://orbiterchspacenews.blogspot.com/2022/11/orion-successfully-completes-lunar.html
Artemis I – Flight Day Four: Testing WiFi Signals, Radiator System, GO for Outbound Powered Flyby
https://orbiterchspacenews.blogspot.com/2022/11/artemis-i-flight-day-four-testing-wifi.html
NASA’s Artemis I Cameras to Offer New Views of Orion, Earth, Moon
https://orbiterchspacenews.blogspot.com/2022/11/nasas-artemis-i-cameras-to-offer-new.html
Artemis I Liftoff! 50 years after Apollo 17, Orion on Its Way to the Moon
https://orbiterchspacenews.blogspot.com/2022/11/artemis-i-liftoff-50-years-after-apollo.html
Artemis I return for launch
https://orbiterchspacenews.blogspot.com/2022/11/artemis-i-return-for-launch.html
Related links:
Track Orion: https://www.nasa.gov/trackartemis
Artemis I: https://www.nasa.gov/artemis-1
Orion spacecraft (ESA): https://www.esa.int/Science_Exploration/Human_and_Robotic_Exploration/Orion
Orion Spacecraft (NASA): https://www.nasa.gov/exploration/systems/orion/index.html
Image (mentioned), Text, Credits: NASA/Cballart.
Best regards, Orbiter.ch
