Nasa Artemis 1: Orion is Just a Day Away from Distant Retrograde Insertion
Orion will soon be entering into a distant retrograde orbit around the Moon, which will take place in about one day.
The orbit is "distant" in the sense that it is at a high altitude of about 50,000 miles from the Moon's surface.
The orbit is so large because of the distance that it will take the spacecraft six days to complete half of a revolution around the Moon before exiting the orbit for the return trip to Earth.
On November 24, just after 1:42 pm CST, Orion was traveling 55,819 miles from the Moon and 222,993 miles from Earth, cruising at 2,610 miles per hour.
Flight controllers performed a third in a series of planned "star tracker" development flight tests relative to the Sun with a fourth planned for tomorrow, during the last day of the transit to distant retrograde orbit.
Star trackers are a type of navigational tool that measures star positions to help a spacecraft in determining its orientation.
On Friday, Nov. 25, NASA Television coverage of the distant retrograde orbit insertion burn, is scheduled for 4:30 pm EST. At 4:52 pm, the burn is scheduled to take place.
Orion is preparing for an important operation: On Friday, November 25, it is planned to perform an engine burn that will insert the spacecraft into orbit around the moon.
If all goes according to plan, Orion will remain in that orbit for about a week, then head back toward Earth on December 1.