The Artemis I mission is on track to make a close flight to the lunar surface. This is the plan that NASA has planned for today, Monday 21st, and which you can follow live on the space agency’s official channel.
After five unsuccessful attempts, the Artemis mission was able to launch on 16 November. With a delay of almost a year, the program that was supposed to return a man to the moon reached the Earth’s satellite. It was a test and unmanned mission with several goals: the first was to test the largest rocket ever built, as well as to test the mission’s ability to reach the moon without compromising the safety of the astronauts. In fact, in just 5 days of the mission, 13 anomalies have already been registered, which are currently managed to fix the technical teams. The most serious of them, the one that affected the navigation sensors.
For 42 days of the mission, the Orion spacecraft will circle the Moon 6 of them. It will then return to Earth for the second leg of the Artemis mission scheduled for 2024. On this occasion with the crew.
At this stage of the Artemis I mission, the goal is simple: fly next to the moon and make a landing approach at a stable altitude. In particular, to 130 kilometers from its lunar surface. Process what we can see around 13:44 (peninsular time in Spain), although the coverage will start at 11:00 and will have a critical phase of at least 2.5 minutes, which corresponds to turning on the engines to start the maneuver. After this process Orion will enter lunar orbit and repeat its approach to the surface on November 25th.approaching the far side of the moon. In fact, the purpose of this test is to test the process in order to repeat it with a manned mission in 2024. If this is accomplished, it will be the furthest that humans have advanced in their space career.
Follow the Artemis mission live
We will be able to follow the whole process live thanks to the 24 cameras that the Orion ship is equipped with. Some devices called, in addition to being able to analyze mission data, to make the lunar race a show again.
Until December 1, the Orion capsule of the Artemis I mission will remain in the region of the Moon. It will return to earth on December 11 when it is expected to fall off the coast of California.
Source: Hiper Textual
