ORLANDO, Fla. – NASA announced on Sunday that the mission management team polled “go” for Orion’s flyby past the moon.
The burn is scheduled for 7:44 a.m., and NASA said that Orion will lose communication with Earth as it passes behind the moon from 7:25 a.m. until 7:59 a.m. on Monday, Nov. 21.
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During the flyby, Orion will make its closet approach of about 80 miles from the surface of the moon at 7:57 a.m., according to the space agency.
Just after 5:30 p.m. on Sunday, Nov. 19, NASA announced that Orion already traveled 222,823 miles from Earth and was 79,011 miles from the Moon, cruising at 812 miles per hour.
The Artemis I mission — consisting of the Orion spacecraft and the Space Launch Systems rocket — launched just before 2 a.m. Wednesday from Kennedy Space Center.
Orion is traveling at 5,459 mph to the moon. The spacecraft is barely into the first day of a 25.5-day test flight that will see the spacecraft travel around the moon in an orbit that will see Orion travel farther out than any spacecraft has before, giving NASA crews the chance to conduct all kinds of test, and then return to Earth, where the all-important heat shield will be tested.
It’s the first step toward sending humans back to the moon, first to orbit in Artemis II, and then landing on the moon in Artemis III.
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