Photo courtesy of NASA Orion Spacecraft via Flickr. NASA launched the Orion spacecraft on Nov. 26, 2022, to prepare for future Artemis missions which will allow direct travel from the moon to Mars.
By Anh Pham ’25
Staff Writer
At 8:40 a.m. EST on Nov. 26, 2022, Artemis 1 mission’s uncrewed Orion spacecraft officially set the record for flying the furthest distance compared to any previous spacecraft designed to carry humans, outperforming the 1970 Apollo 13, an Engadget article reported.
According to NASA, the spacecraft reached the midpoint of its mission and its farthest distance from Earth at nearly 270,000 miles away on Monday, Nov. 28. As explained by Space.com, on Nov. 21, Orion entered a point behind the moon where radio signals cannot reach the Earth, meaning that NASA was “in the dark” as the spacecraft completed the engine burn that launched Orion into a distant retrograde orbit around the moon.
“Retrograde” literally means “moving backward.” In the case of a spacecraft orbiting the moon in a distant retrograde orbit, “The orbit is ‘distant’ in the sense that it’s at a high altitude from the surface of the moon, and it’s ‘retrograde’ because Orion will travel around the moon opposite the direction the moon travels around Earth,” according to NASA.
According to NASA’s solar system exploration site, Lagrange points are points at which the gravitational forces of two mass bodies, in this case, the moon and the Earth, equal the centripetal force required for a smaller object, the spacecraft, to move with them. The centripetal force is directed at the center of the rotation and keeps the rotating object moving in a circle. When a spacecraft is in these Lagrange positions, the enhanced attraction and repulsion coming from the two larger bodies’ gravitational forces means that the spacecraft can harness the equal forces of the moon and Earth to remain still, thus using much less fuel consumption.
NASA reported that after the spacecraft entered the moon’s lunar sphere of influence where the moon’s gravitational force became the main attraction force instead of the Earth, Orion performed an outbound powered flyby burn. In this case, “flyby” refers to a close approach of a spacecraft to the moon for observation. During this flyby burn, the spacecraft would approach at just 80 miles above the moon’s surface. According to Space.com, NASA’s Public Affairs Officer Sandra Jones said during an Artemis 1 livestream on Monday that the spacecraft took advantage of the moon’s gravitational force to “swing the spacecraft once around the moon toward entry into a distant retrograde orbit” 40,000 miles above the moon’s surface.
Orion spacecraft integration manager Jim Geffre stated that Artemis 1’s purpose is to stress the system of Orion using distant retrograde orbit with a “large orbit” and a “high altitude above the moon,” an Engadget article said. As Orion broke the Apollo 13 flight record, Geffre cited the success as “pushing the boundaries of exploration and sending spacecraft farther than we had ever done before."
According to Space.com, Jones explained that Orion’s orbit differs from the orbit of the Apollo program, in which “the spacecraft and its crew orbited much closer to the lunar surface in a more circular fashion.” Jones added that “distant retrograde orbit is important because it helps us to learn about how a spacecraft functions in a deep space environment.” Orion will remain in this distant retrograde orbit — the extreme environment of deep space — for about a week to test its systems, NASA said.
Philip Metzger of the University of Central Florida’s Space Institute explained to Wesh Orlando that NASA considered the mission a “stress test” for the craft. He added that the spacecraft must be able to filter high radiation to avoid giving crew radiation sickness, and the electronics on board should be able to handle the high level of radiation in deep space. Wesh Orlando explained that a mission in a high orbit around the moon means a longer exposure time than previous missions, posing challenges for “equipment, communications and navigation.”
According to NASA, the mission to test the Orion spacecraft was part of a series of “complex missions” related to Artemis’ launch, intended to prepare for future crewed missions to be sent to Mars from the moon. According to Space.com, the objective is to “set up a crewed research base on the moon by the end of the 2020s.” According to Wesh Orlando, Orion is expected to be in DRO until Dec. 1 before heading back to Earth to splash down in the Pacific Ocean on Dec. 11.
Space.com reported that if Artemis 1 is successful, NASA expects to proceed with Artemis 2, in which astronauts will be sent to the moon in 2024. Space.com also stated that in 2025, NASA aims to launch Artemis 3 as “the first crewed lunar landing since the final Apollo mission in 1972,” where the crew would land on the lunar south pole where the research base would be located.
According to NASA, the series of Artemis missions will land the first woman and first person of color on the moon and “establish the first long-term presence on the moon.” The knowledge gained from exploring the moon and its surrounding environment paves the way to sending the first astronaut to Mars, NASA’s website about the Artemis missions explains.