Artemis I: the lunar flyby at an altitude of 130 km a success | Photo

The Artemis mission has completed a first and very important step since its departure, which will also give life to a lot of photographic material that we can’t wait to see and that NASA will certainly not fail to share with the rest of the world.

We are talking about the first lunar flyby since departure on Wednesday 16 November, the day in which the mission came to life after countless vicissitudes and postponements that lasted from the end of August to a few days ago. The live appointment has taken off today 21 November at 11.15 but the most important moment happened a few hours later.

Did you miss the departure of Artemis I? In the article linked below we have told you a bit of everything, including the sequence of events and future developments.

NASA’s Artemis 1 mission will arrive in the vicinity of the moon in a few hours, literally skimming the surface since it will reach a height of about 130 kilometers. If all goes according to plan, the spacecraft will reach that distance when it will be 13.44 with us.

During the flyby, the capsule will fire its main engine, which will be followed by entry into a particular lunar orbit that we will see better below, four days later. Meanwhile, during the past few hours NASA has shared other shots in addition to the one of the Earth from the point of view from Orion’s solar panels, which we showed you a few days ago.

In the meantime, we will show you two of great effect: the first was carried out using one of the same units mounted on the solar arrays and sees the spacecraft itself as the protagonist. The second photographic shot, however, frames our planet moving away. The shots date back to Sunday, when at 20.10 the Orion spacecraft definitively came under the influence of lunar gravity. Here are the beautiful images.

So the next step will materialize on November 25 with the metered ignition of one of the engines, designed to insert the Orion capsule into a distant retrograde orbit (DRO) around the moon. The capsule will remain with DRO until December 1, during which time it will follow a stable course about 65,000 km away from the surface.

At that point, on December 1, another engine firing will send the capsule back to Earth e Orion will return home on December 11th making an atmospheric input at approximately 11 km per second which will produce temperatures of approximately 2,760 degrees Celsius on the heat shield, before crashing into the Pacific Ocean off the California coast. But we’ll talk about this calmly, so for now let’s enjoy today’s show. Appointment at 11.15!

18.00

The first major maneuver after the Orion spacecraft came under the influence of lunar gravity was successful. Orion reacquired the signal with NASA’s Deep Space Network at 1:59 p.m. after a successful flyby at 1:44 p.m. when it started the engine that allowed the first and very important orbital maneuver to start.

At the moment of ignition, Orion was approximately 527 km above the Moon, traveling at 8,083 km/h. Shortly after power up Orion passed 130 km above the Moon, traveling at 8,210 km/h. At the time of the lunar flyby, Orion was more than 370,000 km from Earth. The outgoing flyby burn is the first of two maneuvers required to enter distant retrograde orbit around the Moon. The spacecraft will perform distant retrograde insertion on Friday, November 25, using the European Service Module. Orion will remain in this orbit for about a week to test spacecraft systems.

While waiting for the close-up photos taken on the occasion of the flyby, we offer you some shots taken in the immediately preceding hours.