NASA’s Orion spacecraft is expected to pass close to the Moon on Monday and approach the lunar surface before moving into retrograde orbit, according to the US space agency.
Orion’s entry into the lunar sphere of influence will make the Moon, not Earth, the primary gravitational force acting on the spacecraft, she said.
Flight controllers will pilot an outward-powered flight to harness the Moon’s gravitational force, accelerate the spacecraft and steer it into a distant retrograde orbit beyond the satellite.
During this outward-powered flight, Orion will come closest to the lunar surface, about 130km from it, according to NASA.
Four days later, another thrust from the European Service Module will place Orion in a distant retrograde orbit, where it will remain for about a week to test the spacecraft’s systems.
For its first flight tests, the SLS launcher carrying Orion took off early Wednesday from launch pad 39B at the Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral, Florida. This is the first mission of NASA’s Artemis program.