NASA’s Orion spacecraft is currently on day 24 of the Artemis 1 26-day mission.
Here are the latest updates on the progress of the Orion as it travels around the moon and then back to Earth.
The Mega AgencyOn flight day 13, Orion reached its maximum distance from Earth during the Artemis I mission when it was 268,563 miles away from our home planet. Orion has now traveled farther than any other spacecraft built for humans. 28 Nov 2022 Pictured: On flight day 13, Orion reached its maximum distance from Earth during the […][/caption]
Where is Artemis 1 now?
Nasa has continued to provide updates of the Orion spacecraft’s progress via social media and blog posts.
They have kept a close eye on the Artemis 1 mission as it shoots away from Earth in case it still needs to be aborted.
Artemis 1 isn’t a crewed mission but it needs to loop around the Moon to test three key components.
These are Nasa’s Space Launch System (SLS), its Orion spacecraft, and the European Service Module (ESM).
At the time of writing, Nasa confirmed that Orion spacecraft is now on it’s way back home.
In an update on December 11, 2022, Nasa confirmed that the crew are starting to prepare for the spacecraft to land off the Baja Coast near Guadalupe Island.
The Orion is set to pass “through a period of intense radiation as it travels through the Van Allen Belts.”
Nasa further explained how the Orion was designed to test and ensure the reliability of such spacecraft systems when encountering radiation events.
This mission is to determine the environment that future crews travelling will experience and give more insight to engineers to develop more protective measures.
The crew will be experiencing two-and-a-half times more the force of gravity as they ascent and four times more at two different points during the reentry profile.
You can track the Orion Spacecraft via its Twitter feed @NASA_Orion.
The Artemis Real-time Orbit website – known as Arow – also allows you to follow its progress,
It is kept up to date with the mission time, distance in miles from Earth and also distance from the Moon.
It also shares the speed of the ship.
When will Artemis 1 land on the moon?
The Orion spacecraft and the ESM should get within 62 miles of the lunar surface and then travel 40,000 miles beyond this.
However, it’s not expected to land on the Moon.
Once looping around the dark side of the Moon, the rocket should land in the Pacific Ocean off the coast of San Diego.
The entire mission is expected to be completed in the space of 26 days – with a provisional landing date penned in as December 11, 2022.
When was the Artemis 1 launch?
The rocket blasted off in the early hours of November 16, 2022.
The rocket missed its initial 1.04am ET (6.04am GMT) launch time but blasted off at around 1.47am ET.
The US Space Agency’s administrator Bill Nelson said it was the biggest shockwave he’d seen from a launch.
Nasa say this mission is important for humankind as it aims to put people back on the Moon.
It’s hoped Artemis 2 will carry humans around the Moon in the next couple of years.
Both missions are building up to Artemis 3, which aims to put the first woman and the first person of color on the lunar surface.
Nasa says it has now started “a new chapter in human lunar exploration”.
Once the Artemis missions get humans to the Moon, it’s hoped that we’ll be able to reach Mars.
Exploring the lunar surface and its resources could aid in creating a moonbase for humans and a more efficient way to launch deep space rockets.