NASA’S Artemis I mission to the moon recently reached another milestone when the Orion spacecraft passed the lunar surface at its closest point.
This marks the completion of an big step in the space agency’s plan to send astronauts back to the moon within a few years. Orion, which the Artemis rocket carried into space in November, zoomed about 130km above the moon’s surface, the closest an aircraft has been to the moon in 50 years.
This was followed by another important phase of the mission: the capsule’s engines had to work extra hard to travel more than 64 000km beyond the far side of the moon – the furthest a spacecraft designed to carry crew has ever travelled from Earth. Orion successfully completed the engine burn, or boost, needed to continue its remarkable mission, travelling at 9 144km/h (nearly 1 000km/h faster than before the engine boost) on its way to orbit.
HISTORIC MISSION
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