Skip to main content

Watch: NASA's Orion Spacecraft Successfully Enters Moon's Orbit

By
Watch: NASA's Orion Spacecraft Successfully Enters Moon's Orbit

It will take Orion about a week to complete half an orbit around the Moon

Washington:

NASA's Orion spacecraft was placed in lunar orbit Friday, officials said, as the much-delayed Moon mission proceeded successfully.

A little over a week after the spacecraft blasted off from Florida bound for the Moon, flight controllers "successfully performed a burn to insert Orion into a distant retrograde orbit," the US space agency said on its web site.

The spacecraft is to take astronauts to the Moon in the coming years -- the first to set foot on its surface since the last Apollo mission in 1972.

This first test flight, without a crew on board, aims to ensure that the vehicle is safe.

"The orbit is distant in that Orion will fly about 40,000 miles above the Moon," NASA said.

While in lunar orbit, flight controllers will monitor key systems and perform checkouts while in the environment of deep space, the agency said.

It will take Orion about a week to complete half an orbit around the Moon. It will then exit the orbit for the return journey home, according to NASA.

On Saturday, the ship is expected to go up to 40,000 miles beyond the Moon, a record for a habitable capsule. The current record is held by the Apollo 13 spacecraft at 248,655 miles (400,171 km) from Earth.

It will then begin the journey back to Earth, with a landing in the Pacific Ocean scheduled for December 11, after just over 25 days of flight.

The success of this mission will determine the future of the Artemis 2 mission, which will take astronauts around the Moon without landing, then Artemis 3, which will finally mark the return of humans to the lunar surface.

Those missions are scheduled to take place in 2024 and 2025, respectively.

(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)

Featured Video Of The Day

Viral Video: Free-For-All Fistfight In Noida, Society Polls Blamed

Adblock test (Why?)



from NDTV News- Special https://ift.tt/HA0PM93 https://ift.tt/KVgXUIj
via IFTTT

Labels

Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

US Defense Chief Austin To Make 'Full Recovery' From Cancer: Doctors

By
Austin, a 70-year-old career soldier, initially underwent minor surgery to treat cancer on December 22. Washington: US Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin is likely to make a "full recovery" from prostate cancer and his prognosis is "excellent," two doctors said after he was seen at Walter Reed hospital for a follow-up appointment. Austin controversially kept US President Joe Biden in the dark about the cancer diagnosis for weeks, and did not inform either the commander-in-chief or Congress until days after he was hospitalized on January 1 for complications from his treatment. "Secretary Austin was seen today at Walter Reed National Military Medical Center for a scheduled post-prostatectomy surveillance appointment," the doctors said in a statement released by the Pentagon. "He continues to recover well and is expected to make a full recovery. Secretary Austin's prostate cancer was treated early and effectively, and his prognosis is excellent,...
Post a Comment
Read more

North Korea Says It Tested New Strategic Cruise Missile

By
North Korea test-fired a new generation of strategic cruise missile on Wednesday. (Representational) Seoul: North Korea fired several cruise missiles towards the Yellow Sea on Wednesday, Seoul's military said, the latest in a series of tension-raising moves by the nuclear-armed state. Hours later, North Korea appeared to confirm the firing, saying it had carried out its first test of a new generation of strategic cruise missiles it is developing, the Pulhwasal-3-31. Pyongyang has accelerated weapons testing in the new year, including tests of what it called an "underwater nuclear weapon system" and a solid-fuelled hypersonic ballistic missile. "Our military detected several cruise missiles launched by North Korea towards the Yellow Sea at around 7:00 am today," the South Korean Joint Chiefs of Staff said in a statement. Unlike their ballistic counterparts, the testing of cruise missiles is not banned under current UN sanctions against Pyongyang. Cruise...
Post a Comment
Read more

US "Deplores" Israeli Attack On UN Training Center In Gaza

By
More than 25,000 people have been killed in Gaza since war began against Hamas. Washington: The United States was concerned by an Israeli attack on a U.N. training center sheltering displaced people in Gaza's Khan Younis on Wednesday, Deputy State Department spokesperson Vedant Patel said, repeating Washington's calls for protection of civilians, humanitarian workers and aid facilities. "We deplore today's attack on the U.N.'s Khan Younis training center," Patel told a news briefing, calling it "incredibly concerning." The Director of UNRWA Affairs in Gaza said that nine Palestinians were killed and 75 were injured when two tank rounds hit the building that was sheltering around 800 people in the southern Gaza Strip. "Civilians must be protected, and the protected nature of UN facilities must be respected, and humanitarian workers must be protected so that they can continue providing civilians with the life-saving humanitarian assistance...
Post a Comment
Read more