The Orion spacecraft successfully fired its main engine in 5 minutes and 50 seconds on Thursday, sending four astronauts into a free orbit around the Moon. For NASA and the Artemis II crew, it marked a point of no return for more than a week.
Most Americans, indeed nearly three-quarters of the world’s population, have never seen humans leave low Earth orbit in their lifetime. The last time this happened was in 1972, with the last mission of Apollo.
The “translunar injection” burn of Orion’s main engine occurred about a day after the successful launch of NASA’s Space Launch System rocket from Kennedy Space Center on Wednesday. The burn was the last major firing of Orion’s main engine, and sets the crew on course to fly around the moon on Monday, hurtle toward Earth under the moon’s gravity, and splash into the Pacific Ocean on Friday, April 10.
“Things are going really well right now,” Lori Glaze, NASA’s top intelligence official, said during a press conference Thursday evening. “I don’t think we can be too happy about that.”
The first day is full of activity
The decision to leave Earth orbit was made after a stressful day aboard Orion, with a crew of four; Reid Wiseman, Victor Glover, Christina Koch and Jeremy Hansen pushed the spacecraft’s life support and propulsion systems so that the vehicle was ready for a long-duration mission in deep space.
Howard Hu, program manager for NASA’s Orion spacecraft, said Orion’s life support is working very well. This includes critical systems such as carbon dioxide “scrubbers” that remove exhaust gases from the cabin atmosphere, and water systems. On initial inspection, there was a small panic when the Orion toilet was supposed to be “soaked” with water to prime the pump. Not enough water was supplied, so the pump did not respond. After adding water once again it started working fine.
