The Artemis 1 Orion spacecraft saw a burst of power hours before the flyby of the moon
NASA’s Orion spacecraft experienced a brief power problem on Sunday (Dec. 4), just hours before successfully completing a crucial engine burn near the moon.
Power unit on board of Orion spacecraft shut down four devices “responsible for downstream power” that connect to the propulsion and heating subsystems of the Artemis 1 vehicle, NASA officials said in a statement (opens in new tab). But mission personnel quickly applied a correction and the mission continued, the statement stressed.
“Teams have confirmed the system is healthy and have successfully restored power to downstream components,” agency officials wrote in a statement released late Sunday. “There was no loss of power to critical systems and no adverse effects on Orion’s navigation or communications.”
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Despite the hiccups, Orion seemed to sail through a decisive engine burnout close to moon Monday (Dec. 5) to put it on course for a fall in the Pacific Ocean on Dec. 11. The problem occurred shortly after a different trajectory burn on Sunday that began at 11:43 a.m. EST (1643 GMT), and NASA is investigating the cause.
The power problem was identified shortly after Orion returned to contact with NASA’s Deep Space Network at 1:41 p.m. EST (1841 GMT) on Sunday, following a planned power outage; Orion is periodically out of contact with Earth as it flies on the far side of the Moon, where it cannot transmit signals to our planet’s antennas.
NASA engineers aren’t sure if the problem is related to a previous problem with the devices, which are called umbilical blocking current limiters. On flight day 5 of the mission, around November 21, one of the eight devices are open (opens in new tab) without command. Engineers ordered the device to shut down and had no problem doing so, officials said at the time.
Orion is on track to iron out bugs like this before what is expected to be its first crewed mission Artemis 2 in 2024 or so. The flight also had other minor problems, such as temporary failures in the capsule’s random access memory and an issue during which Orion lost contact with Earth in 47 minutes.
Regardless, Artemis 1 has so far verified all of its required mission milestones since its Nov. 16 launch.
Elizabeth Howell co-authored “Why am I taller? (opens in new tab)?” (ECW Press, 2022; with Canadian astronaut Dave Williams), a book about space medicine. Follow her on Twitter @howellspace (opens in new tab). Follow us on Twitter @Spacedotcom (opens in new tab) or Facebook (opens in new tab).
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