Watch Artemis 1 Orion fly by the moon on Monday morning
NASA’s Artemis 1 mission will arrive in the lunar region on Monday morning (November 21), and you can follow the epic action live.
Artemis 1The spacecraft’s uncrewed Orion capsule has been traveling to the moon since Wednesday morning (Nov. 16), when launched atop NASA’s giant Space Launch System (SLS) rocket.
Orion will finally reach The moon on Monday morning, passing just 80 miles (130 kilometers) above the lunar surface at 7:44 a.m. EST (1244 GMT), if all goes according to plan. During this close approach, the capsule will fire its main engine in a “power-by flyby burn,” setting it on course to enter lunar orbit four days later.
Artemis 1 team members will explain and discuss the crucial maneuver during a webcast beginning Monday at 7:15 a.m. EST (1215 GMT). Watch it live here on Space.com, courtesy of NASA, or directly through the space agency (opens in new tab).
Connected: Amazing views from the debut of NASA’s Artemis 1 lunar rocket (photos)
Live updates: NASA’s Artemis 1 lunar mission
Artemis 1 is NASA’s first mission Artemis program for lunar exploration, which aims to establish a manned research base on the moon by the end of 2020, among other goals. The liftoff of Artemis 1 also marks the debut of SLS, the most powerful missile ever successfully launched.
Monday’s burn will set up another crucial maneuver on Nov. 25: firing a thruster designed to put Orion into a far retrograde orbit (DRO) around the moon. The capsule will remain in DRO — a stable path that will take it to within 40,000 miles (64,000 km) of the lunar surface — until Dec. 1, when another engine burn will send the capsule back to Earth.
Orion will come home on December 11th, banging Earth’s atmosphere at tremendous speeds before eventually splashing gently into the Pacific Ocean off the coast of California.
If all goes well with Artemis 1, NASA will be free to begin preparations Artemis 2which will send astronauts around the moon in or around 2024.
In 2025, the agency plans to launch Artemis 3, which will place boots near the moon’s south pole, the site of the intended research base. Artemis 3 will be the first manned moon landing since the final Apollo mission in 1972 and the first in history to send a woman and a person of color to the moon.
Mike Wall is the author of “There (opens in new tab)” (Grand Central Publishing, 2018; illustrated by Carl Tate), a book about the search for extraterrestrial life. Follow him on Twitter @michaeldwall (opens in new tab). Follow us on Twitter @Spacedotcom (opens in new tab) or Facebook (opens in new tab).
#Watch #Artemis #Orion #fly #moon #Monday #morning
