NASA’s Orion spacecraft pictured orbiting the Moon midway through a landmark test flight
NASA’s Orion spacecraft was orbiting the Moon yesterday midway through its landmark test flight.
The capsule – with three mannequins instead of astronauts – started its engines on Friday.
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Over the next few days in orbit, Orion is expected to reach a record 270,000 miles from Earth.
The mission is part of Nasa’s £4 billion Project Artemis, which is targeting a lunar landing in 2025, the first since the Apollo 17 flight in 1972.
Last week, Mission Control in Houston briefly lost contact with Orion.
NASA’s Jim Geffre said of the mission, “It’s about challenging us to go further, stay longer, and push the boundaries of what we’ve already explored.”
The update comes after the Artemis 1 mission lifted off from NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral, Florida on Wednesday, November 16 at 1:04 a.m. EST.
Nasa hosted a number of webcasts ahead of the unmanned launch of Artemis 1, which served as the Space Launch System rocket’s first test flight with its Orion spacecraft.
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