Space travel: Nasa mission “Artemis 1” swung out of lunar orbit
space travel
NASA’s Artemis 1 mission swung out of lunar orbit
The Earth and Moon are seen from the Orion capsule in this image provided by the US space agency Nasa. photo
© Uncredited/NASA/AP/dpa
After months of delay, the “Orion” capsule is finally in space. So far everything is going according to plan.
the NASAMoon mission “Artemis 1” is on its way home: The unmanned “Orion” capsule fired its engines yesterday and swung out of its orbit around the moon, as the US space agency Nasa announced. On Monday, the capsule is scheduled to fly close to the moon again during its test flight before it is expected to return to Earth on December 11th.
In the approximately 80,000 kilometers from moon distant orbit, the capsule had swung in about a week ago and then flown halfway once. Because of the great distance, it took her about six days. “Orion” flew around the moon in a direction opposite to that in which the moon orbits the earth. According to Nasa, this orbit had the advantage that it was very stable and “Orion” consumed comparatively little fuel on it.
The “Artemis 1” mission set off for a first test launch on November 16 (local time) after months of postponements. With the rocket “Space Launch System” the “Orion“-Capsule from the Cape Canaveral spaceport in the US state of Florida. With the “Artemis” program, named after the Greek goddess of the moon, US astronauts are to land on the moon again in the coming years, including for the first time a woman and a non-white person .
