Orion has entered into the lunar sphere of influence at 11:39 pm IST, on 20 nov,2022. Now, moon gravitational force is acting on Orion spacecraft instead of Earth. Orion continues on its trajectory toward the Moon. The optical navigation camera has captured the additional images of moon.
The mission, Artemis 1 launched on 16 Nov, sending an uncrewed Orion toward the moon atop a huge Space Launch System (SLS) rocket. This is Orion’s first-ever journey beyond Earth orbit, but the capsule has been checking boxes like a veteran, mission team members said.
Orion spacecraft is now half the way to Moon. The solar arrays have captured the Moon image with a camera mounted on the end of the array. It, cruising at 371 miles per hours, had traveled 232,683 miles from Earth and was 39,501 miles away from moon at 11:39 pm IST, on 20 Nov, 2022.
The umbilical was successfully commanded closed each time and there was no loss of power flowing to avionics on the spacecraft. Both systems are currently functioning as required, and there are no mission impacts related to these efforts.
Team has been analyzing the data for systems and understanding their behavior during an active flight test while the hardware is in the deep space environment will improve mission operations on Artemis I and future missions.
Mission managers currently have two active anomaly resolution teams. Anomaly resolution teams are a standard part of managing the mission by pulling together a team of technical experts to focus on a specific issue by examining data to understand the implications in a particular system.
There is a separate team for engineers and flight controllers to continue focusing on commanding and monitoring the spacecraft and assessing the progress of the flight test.
What’s happening today?
The capsule will conduct the fourth outbound trajectory correction burn in advance of the outbound powered flyby burn. Flight controllers will conduct the outbound powered flyby burn by firing the orbital maneuvering system engine for 2 minutes and 30 seconds to accelerate the spacecraft, harness the force from the Moon’s gravity, and direct it toward a distant retrograde orbit beyond the Moon.
The outbound powered flyby will begin at 6:14pm IST, with Orion’s closest approach to the Moon targeted for 6:27pm IST, when it will pass about 80 miles above the lunar surface. Engineers expect to lose communication with the spacecraft as is passes behind the Moon for approximately 34 minutes starting at 5:56pm IST, on 21 Nov, 2022.
The Goldstone ground station will acquire the spacecraft once it emerges from behind the Moon. The Gold stone ground station is a part of NASA’s Deep Space Network.
