The next total solar eclipse – when the moon completely blocks the face of the sun – could be your last chance to see one occur for decades to come.
Such an event is expected to cross over Mexico, the U.S. and Canada on April 8, 2024. And according to NASA, that will be the last total solar eclipse visible from the contiguous U.S. until August 2044.
During a total solar eclipse, the moon passes between the sun and Earth, blocking the sun’s light and darkening the sky as if it were early in the morning or late in the evening. The last time this type of eclipse event took place over the U.S. was in August 2017, when people were able to see the event across the entire continent for the first time in nearly 100 years.
Total solar eclipses happen every one to three years, but the events are usually only visible from Earth’s poles or from the middle of the ocean.
While next year’s eclipse won’t be visible from coast-to-coast, the path of totality does go across a dozen states, including Texas, Arkansas, New York and Pennsylvania. Totality will start over the South Pacific Ocean before crossing over Mexico, into the U.S. and ending after crossing Canada’s Newfoundland and Labrador. States not in the path of totality will still be able to see a partial solar eclipse.
The first spot in North America expected to witness totality is Mexico’s Pacific coast at around 11:07 a.m. PDT, according to NASA. While the eclipse will last a couple of hours, totality will last just about four minutes. It’s only during these few minutes that it’s safe for people to remove their special eclipse glasses.
What to expect
The long-awaited moment of a total solar eclipse – totality – makes up just minutes of an hours-long process, and aside from that moment, it’s crucial for people to wear special eclipse glasses so as to not hurt their eyes.
The event will begin with what’s called the partial stage, when the moon has not yet fully covered the sun, giving the giant star a crescent shape. This can last between 70 and 80 minutes in most places. As the moon closes in on totality, “Baily’s Beads” will appear – small light rays from the sun that quickly paper along the moon’s horizon. Then, right before totality, the beads will disappear, leaving only a single bright spot referred to as the “diamond ring.”
That’s when the moment finally comes – the sky is dark and the sun appears like a glowing black orb.
“During totality, take a few seconds to observe the world around you. You may be able to see a 360 degree sunset. You may also be able to see some particularly bright stars or planets in the darkened sky,” NASA says. “The air temperature will drop and often an eerie silence will settle around you. It is also worth stealing a peek at the people around you – many people have a deep emotional response when the Sun goes into totality.”
After just a couple of moments, the process that led up to totality will repeat in reverse, and the eclipse will come to an end.
Upcoming celestial events
Even though the total solar eclipse is still over a year away, it’s not the only opportunity to see a celestial event from right outside your home. The annular solar eclipse will cross North, Central and South America on Oct. 14 this year, which will be the last time this kind of eclipse will be visible from the continental U.S. until 2039, NASA said.
And if you’re craving a bit of space before the fall, you only have to wait a few weeks.
A bright green comet known as C/2022 E3 (ZTF) is set to make its first and likely only appearance to human eyes. The comet, which is believed to have traveled billions of miles through space, is expected to make its closest approach to the sun on January 12 and its closest approach to Earth on February 2, at which time people may be able to catch a glimpse of the comet with just their binoculars – and if they’re really lucky, with the naked eye.
The death of Brazilian soccer legend Pelé on Thursday ignited a wave of mourning across the world. And for those at NASA, the 82-year-old’s death even surpassed the realms of the planet.
The space agency tweeted its own tribute for “the legendary Pelé” on Thursday, sharing a mesmerizing photo of a spiral galaxy that depicts the colors of Brazil – green, yellow and blue. The image, captured by the Galaxy Evolution Explorer satellite, shows the galaxy NGC 300 which lies in the constellation Sculptor.
NGC 300, according to NASA, is about 7 million light-years away and is known for its “vigorous star formation.” This particular image was captured in 2005. The blue dots in the outer arms of the galaxy’s spirals are the young stars, while older stars are congregated towards the center in yellow and green colors. The small bursts of pink indicate gases being heated by “hot young stars and shocks due to winds from massive stars and supernova explosions,” NASA said.
We mark the passing of the legendary Pelé, known to many as the king of the “beautiful game.” This image of a spiral galaxy in the constellation Sculptor shows the colors of Brazil. pic.twitter.com/sOYfKdTeAJ
Pelé, whom many referred to as “The King,” spent roughly 20 years playing soccer in Brazil, both for the club Santos and the country’s national team. In 1958, he helped lead Brazil to win the World Cup at just 17 years old, making him the youngest world champion of all time. He led his team to two more victories, in 1962 and 1970, becoming the only player to win three of the global tournament.
And his World Cup accolades go beyond the wins themselves. According to FIFA, Pelé is also the youngest person to score in a World Cup game, the youngest person to score a World Cup hat trick and the youngest finalist in the World Cup’s history. His victories led FIFA to name him the greatest player of the 20th century.
Pelé had been undergoing treatment for colon cancer since 2021. The hospital at which he was being treated at the time of his death said Thursday that he died from multiple organ failure.
Officials at NASA and Russia’s space agency, Roscosmos, are working to decide how to bring home several people at the International Space Station after a Russian Soyuz spacecraft sprang a leak last week.
None of the seven people currently on board the ISS — including three Roscosmos cosmonauts, three NASA astronauts and one astronaut with Japan’s space agency — were ever in any dangeras a result of the leak, officials have noted. But it’s not yet clear whether the spacecraft will be able to make a trip back home with its crew on board.
The Soyuz MS-22 spacecraft ferried NASA’s Frank Rubio and two Russian cosmonauts, Sergey Prokopyev and Dmitry Petelin, to the space station on September 21. It was scheduled to bring them back to Earth in March. But Roscosmos is now evaluating whether to fly its next Soyuz mission to the ISS empty and move the launch up two to three weeks so that the spacecraft can serve as a rescue vehicle for Rubio, Prokopyev, and Petelin if Soyuz MS-22 is deemed not safe enough for the crew. If Roscosmos goes with that plan, the next Soyuz mission could lift off in February, according to Montalbano.
The leak on the Soyuz MS-22, which is currently attached to the ISS at one of the orbiting laboratory’s eight docking ports, was identified on December 14. It forced the delay of a planned spacewalk by two cosmonauts last week, and live images during a NASA broadcast showed liquid spewing out from the spacecraft.
Roscosmos determined that the leak occurred on an external cooling loop of the Soyuz. The leak is not expected to cause any external corrosion or damage to the exterior of the ISS, Montalbano noted, saying the leaked coolant “boils up very quickly” as it’s exposed.
It’s not yet clear was caused the leak, which has been traced to a small hole that could have been caused by a collision with a piece of space debris, a mechanical problem or some other issue, according to Montalbano.
Space debris was, however, the certain cause of a one-day delay for a spacewalk planned by the United States. Two astronauts were slated to venture out on Wednesday to install a new solar array to the space station’s exterior, but the ISS had to maneuver out of the way of a piece of spaceborne garbage. The debris was determined to be a piece of an old Russian rocket.
The ISS was able to maneuver successfully, and the US spacewalk kicked off Thursday morning without issue.
InSight—or, less elegantly, the Interior Exploration using Seismic Investigations, Geodesy and Heat Transport mission—is a robot that NASA’s JPL (with help from the European Space Agency) sent to Mars back in 2018.
It’s job was fairly simple. Or as simple as “a highly complex robot built on Earth then fired from a rocket into deep space then landed on another planet” can be, anyway. InSight put a seismometer on Mars and has sat around for the last four years reading and interpreting the data received from it, killing its time providing “accurate 3D models of the planet’s interior” and measuring “internal heat transfer using a heat probe called HP3 to study Mars’ early geological evolution”.
A selfie taken by InSight back in 2018Photo: NASA
Aside from its main role, InSight has also been useful because it has a camera attached, allowing it to take some very nice photos of the surface of Mars. Its coolest achievement, however, at least for anyone not in the field of hardcore space science, is the fact that the robot was able—via vibrations detected on its solar panels—to record the sound of wind on Mars, which is the first time anyone had ever heard wind from another planet.
Sounds of Mars: NASA’s InSight Senses Martian Wind
So yeah, nice robot! But like any robot sent into space, InSight is running on a battery, and while solar panels and judicious use of its systems have helped prologue its life, the time is fast approaching where it runs out of juice for good and is forced to power down.
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This should be a routine matter. This is a machine, it’s going to stop working, we will all get on with our lives. But somebody at NASA had the bright/terrible idea to anthropomorphize InSight’s final days, and so instead of a press report saying “machine stopped working, it did neat stuff”, we have to read this:
Excuse me. I just have some…Martian dust in my eye.
I hope, one day soon, we ourselves are able to travel to Mars. And when we get there, I hope one of the first things we do is find InSight, and give it a hug.
Temperatures in a Russian Soyuz crew ferry ship docked at the International Space Station — a lifeboat for three of the lab’s seven crew members — remain within safe limits despite a dramatic overnight leak in the spacecraft’s cooling system, officials said Thursday.
The leak developed around 7:45 p.m. EST Wednesday amid preparations for a planned 6-hour and 40-minute spacewalk by cosmonauts Sergey Prokopyev and Dmitri Petelin to move a radiator from the Rassvet module, where the Soyuz MS-22/68S spacecraft is docked, to the new Nauka laboratory module.
With the cosmonauts suited up in the Poisk airlock compartment, Russian flight controllers noted a low-pressure warning in an external Soyuz coolant loop, and then saw a sudden stream of coolant venting into space in a shower of icy particles.
The leak looked especially dramatic under certain lighting conditions, showing up in a NASA television camera view as a jetting shower of countless shiny particles, presumably frozen coolant. The leak was not clearly visible in another view, from another angle and with different lighting.
Cosmonaut Anna Kikina, working inside the Russian Nauka lab module (left), uses a European-built robot arm to inspect the Soyuz MS-22 spacecraft (right) after it sprang an apparent coolant leak, forcing Russian flight controllers to cancel an already planned spacewalk. Dec. 14, 2022.
NASA TV
But there was no doubt a major leak was present. It continued for several hours and Russian flight controllers called off the spacewalk while engineers monitored telemetry and video.
More than 12 hours later, the origin and cause of the leak remained unclear. Options ranged from a space debris impact to an isolated hardware failure of some sort.
The Soyuz carried Prokopyev, Petelin and NASA astronaut Frank Rubio to the space station on Sept. 21, and it is required to carry them back to Earth at the end of March. In the meantime, the ship serves as a lifeboat in case of an emergency that might force the trio to abandon the ISS ahead of schedule.
Coolant systems are critical to all spacecraft in order to cope with a wide range of temperatures, such as when vehicles are in direct sunlight, the cold darkness of the Earth’s shadow, or during re-entry. It’s not yet known how much coolant, if any, might remain in the system, or how temperatures will respond to different sun angles in the station’s orbit.
But telemetry in the wake of the leak showed temperatures in the Soyuz spacecraft remained within safe limits.
The Russian space agency Roscosmos “is closely monitoring Soyuz spacecraft temperatures, which remain within acceptable limits,” NASA said in a blog post Thursday. “NASA and Roscosmos continue to coordinate external imagery and inspection plans to aid in evaluating the external leak location.”
While NASA did not address the issue directly, the Soyuz presumably is flightworthy as is, but no other details were immediately available.
Overnight Wednesday, cosmonaut Anna Kikina, who flew up to the ISS aboard a SpaceX Crew Dragon ferry ship with three NASA-sponsored crewmates, used a new European Space Agency-built robot arm on the Nauka module to visually inspect the Soyuz.
NASA said an additional inspection by the Canadian-built robot arm on the U.S. segment of the lab complex is being planned. In the meantime, Crew Dragon astronaut Josh Cassada and Rubio are pressing ahead with plans to carry out a spacewalk of their own Monday to continue an ongoing solar array system upgrade.
“The crew aboard station completed normal operations Thursday, including participating in science investigations and research,” NASA reported. “Specialists are working through robotic plans ahead of Monday’s spacewalk to best optimize for upcoming station operations and the Soyuz inspection.”
Bill Harwood has been covering the U.S. space program full-time since 1984, first as Cape Canaveral bureau chief for United Press International and now as a consultant for CBS News. He covered 129 space shuttle missions, every interplanetary flight since Voyager 2’s flyby of Neptune and scores of commercial and military launches. Based at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida, Harwood is a devoted amateur astronomer and co-author of “Comm Check: The Final Flight of Shuttle Columbia.”
A planned spacewalk by the Russian space agency Roscosmos has been called off following the discovery of a coolant leak coming from the Soyuz MS-22 spacecraft, which is currently docked to the International Space Station.
NASA’s Rob Navias, speaking on the NASA TV broadcast, called it a “fairly significant” leak. Live images during the broadcast showed liquid spewing out from the Soyuz. Navias said the leak was first observed around 7:45 p.m. ET Wednesday.
The Soyuz spacecraft is docked to the Russian segment of the space station.
The crew is safe, and all systems of the space station and the ship are operating normally, according to Roscosmos, in a statement in Russian released Thursday morning on Twitter. (CNN translated the statement.)
“The crew reported that the warning device of the ship’s diagnostic system went off, indicating a pressure drop in the cooling system,” according to Roscosmos. “A visual inspection confirmed the leak, after which it was decided to interrupt the planned extravehicular activities by the crew members of the ISS Russian Segment Sergey Prokopiev and Dmitry Petelin.”
Navias said the cause of the coolant leak is “unknown and the effect at this point unknown as Russian managers continue to look over the data and consult with both NASA managers and engineers” and outside experts.He said the astronauts inside the space station were “never in any danger.”
Russian cosmonaut Anna Kikina, using the camera on Russia’s Nauka module on the space station, “photographed and filmed the outer surface of the ship,” according to Roscosmos. “The data was transmitted to Earth, and the specialists have already begun to study the images.”
“No decisions have been made regarding the integrity of the Soyuz MS-22 or what the next course of action will be,” Navias added, wrapping up NASA-TV coverage of the canceled spacewalk.
Roscosmos added that the situation will be analyzed before a decision is made about what comes next.
NASA took a similar tone in a Thursday statement: “NASA and Roscosmos will continue to work together to determine the next course of action following the ongoing analysis.”
The Soyuz MS-22 ferried NASA astronaut Frank Rubio and two Russian cosmonauts to the space station on September 21 and is scheduled to bring them back to Earth in late March.
NASA is celebrating the successful return of its Artemis I Orion spacecraft after the agency’s most ambitious lunar mission in half a century. As Mark Strassmann reports, astronauts could be climbing aboard next.
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NASA’s Orion capsule made a blisteringly fast return from the moon Sunday, parachuting into the Pacific off Mexico to conclude a test flight that should clear the way for astronauts on the next lunar flyby.
The incoming capsule hit the atmosphere at Mach 32, or 32 times the speed of sound, and endured reentry temperatures of 5,000 degrees Fahrenheit (2,760 degrees Celsius) before splashing down west of Baja California near Guadalupe Island. A Navy ship quickly moved in to recover the spacecraft and its silent occupants — three test dummies rigged with vibration sensors and radiation monitors.
NASA hailed the descent and splashdown as close to perfect, as congratulations poured in from Washington..
“I’m overwhelmed,” NASA Administrator Bill Nelson said from Mission Control in Houston. “This is an extraordinary day … It’s historic because we are now going back into space — deep space — with a new generation.”
The space agency needed a successful splashdown to stay on track for the next Orion flight around the moon, targeted for 2024 with four astronauts who will be revealed early next year. That would be followed by a two-person lunar landing as early as 2025 and, ultimately, a sustainable moon base. The long-term plan would be to launch a Mars expedition by the late 2030s.
Astronauts last landed on the moon 50 years ago. After touching down on Dec. 11, 1972, Apollo 17′s Eugene Cernan and Harrison Schmitt spent three days exploring the valley of Taurus-Littrow, the longest stay of the Apollo era. They were the last of the 12 moonwalkers.
Orion was the first capsule to visit the moon since then, launching on NASA’s new mega moon rocket from Kennedy Space Center on Nov. 16. It was the first flight of NASA’s new Artemis moon program, named after Apollo’s mythological twin sister.
“From Tranquility Base to Taurus-Littrow to the tranquil waters of the Pacific, the latest chapter of NASA’s journey to the moon comes to a close. Orion back on Earth,” announced Mission Control commentator Rob Navias.
While no one was on the $4 billion test flight, NASA managers were thrilled to pull off the dress rehearsal, especially after so many years of flight delays and busted budgets. Fuel leaks and hurricanes conspired for additional postponements in late summer and fall.
In an Apollo throwback, NASA held a splashdown party at Houston’s Johnson Space Center on Sunday, with employees and their families gathering to watch the broadcast of Orion’s homecoming. Next door, the visitor center threw a bash for the public.
Getting Orion back intact after the 25-day flight was NASA’s top objective. With a return speed of 25,000 mph (40,000 kph) — considerably faster than coming in from low-Earth orbit — the capsule used a new, advanced heat shield never tested before in spaceflight. To reduce the gravity or G loads, it dipped into the atmosphere and briefly skipped out, also helping to pinpoint the splashdown area.
All that unfolded in spectacular fashion, officials noted, allowing for Orion’s safe return.
“I don’t think any one of us could have imagined a mission this successful,” said mission manager Mike Sarafin.
Further inspections will be conducted once Orion is back at Kennedy by month’s end. If the capsule checks find nothing amiss, NASA will announce the first lunar crew amid considerable hoopla in early 2023, picking from among the 42 active U.S. astronauts stationed at Houston’s Johnson Space Center.
“People are anxious, we know that,” Vanessa Wyche, Johnson’s director, told reporters. Added Nelson: “The American people, just like (with) the original seven astronauts in the Mercury days, are going to want to know about these astronauts.”
The capsule splashed down more than 300 miles (482 kilometers) south of the original target zone. Forecasts calling for choppy seas and high wind off the Southern California coast prompted NASA to switch the location.
Orion logged 1.4 million miles (2.25 million kilometers) as it zoomed to the moon and then entered a wide, swooping orbit for nearly a week before heading home.
It came within 80 miles (130 kilometers) of the moon twice. At its farthest, the capsule was more than 268,000 miles (430,000 kilometers) from Earth.
Orion beamed back stunning photos of not only the gray, pitted moon, but also the home planet. As a parting shot, the capsule revealed a crescent Earth — Earthrise — that left the mission team speechless.
Nottingham Trent University astronomer Daniel Brown said the flight’s many accomplishments illustrate NASA’s capability to put astronauts on the next Artemis moonshot.
“This was the nail-biting end of an amazing and important journey for NASA’s Orion spacecraft,” Brown said in a statement from England.
The moon has never been hotter. Just hours earlier Sunday, a spacecraft rocketed toward the moon from Cape Canaveral. The lunar lander belongs to ispace, a Tokyo company intent on developing an economy up there. Two U.S. companies, meanwhile, have lunar landers launching early next year.
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NASA’s Artemis 1 moonship returned to Earth Sunday, slamming into the upper atmosphere at more than 24,000 mph and enduring a 5,000-degree re-entry inferno before settling to a picture perfect splashdown in the Pacific Ocean to close out a 25-day 1.4-million-mile test flight to the moon and back.
Descending under three huge parachutes, the unpiloted 9-ton Orion capsule gently hit the water 200 miles west of Baja California at 12:40 p.m. EST, 20 minutes after encountering the first traces of the discernible atmosphere 76 miles up.
“I’m overwhelmed. This is an extraordinary day,” said NASA Administrator Bill Nelson. “It’s historic, because we are now going back into deep space with a new generation.”
NASA’s unpiloted Orion capsule descends to splashdown Sunday in the Pacific Ocean west of Baja California to close out 25-day test flight around the moon and back. The mission is expected to help pave the way toward the first piloted Artemis moon mission in 2024.
Network TV Pool (above and below)
In an appropriate if unplanned coincidence, the splashdown came 50 years to the day after the final Apollo 17 moon landing in 1972 and just 10 hours after SpaceX launched a Japanese moon lander, the first sent up in a purely a commercial venture, from Cape Canaveral.
“From Tranquility Base to Taurus-Littrow to the tranquil waters of the Pacific, the latest chapter of NASA’s journey to the moon comes to a close. Orion, back on Earth,” said NASA commentator Rob Navias at the moment of Orion’s splashdown, referring to the Apollo 11 and 17 landing sites.
Nelson also reflected on Apollo, saying President John F. Kennedy “stunned everybody with the Apollo generation, and said that we were going to achieve what we thought was impossible.”
“It’s a new day,” Nelson said. “A new day has dawned. And the Artemis generation is taking us there.”
The Orion capsule is towed toward the flooded well deck of the USS Portland, an amphibious transport dock ship. Once inside, the deck will be sealed, the water pumped out and the spacecraft will be left on a protective cradle for the trip back to Naval Base San Diego.
NASA
A joint Navy-NASA recovery team was standing by within sight of the Orion splashdown to inspect the scorched capsule and, after a final round of tests, tow it into the flooded well deck of the USS Portland, an amphibious dock ship.
After the sea water is pumped out, Orion will settle onto a protective cradle for the voyage back to Naval Base San Diego and, eventually, a trip home to the Kennedy Space Center.
Re-entry and splashdown were the final major objectives of the Artemis 1 test flight, giving engineers confidence the spacecraft’s 16.5-foot-wide Apollo-derived Avcoat heat shield and parachutes will work as designed when four astronauts return from the moon after the next Artemis flight in 2024.
Testing the heat shield was, in fact, the top priority of the Artemis 1 mission, “and it is our priority-one objective for a reason,” mission manager Mike Sarafin said Friday.
“There is no arc jet or aerothermal facility here on Earth capable of replicating hypersonic reentry with a heat shield of this size,” he said. “And it is a brand new heat shield design, and it is a safety-critical piece of equipment. It is designed to protect the spacecraft and (future astronauts) … so the heat shield needs to work.”
And it apparently did just that, with no obvious signs of any major damage. Likewise, all three main parachutes deployed normally as did airbags needed to stabilize the capsule in light ocean swells.
A camera on one of the Orion capsule’s four solar wings captured spectacular images of Earth as the spacecraft closed in Sunday for re-entry and splashdown. This shot came down less than one our before re-entry.
NASA
A successful test flight was “what we need in order to prove this vehicle so that we can fly with a crew,” said Deputy Administrator Bob Cabana, a former space shuttle commander. “And that’s the next step, and I can’t wait. … A few minor glitches along the way, but (overall) it performed flawlessly.”
Launched Nov. 16 on the maiden flight of NASA’s huge new Space Launch System rocket, the unpiloted Orion capsule was boosted out of Earth orbit and on to the moon for an exhaustive series of tests, putting its propulsion, navigation, power and computer systems through their paces in the deep space environment.
The Orion flew through half of a “distant retrograde orbit” around the moon that carried it farther from Earth — 268,563 miles — than any previous human-rated spacecraft. Two critical firings of its main engine set up a low-altitude lunar flyby last Monday that, in turn, put the craft on course for splashdown Sunday.
NASA originally planned to bring the ship down west of San Diego, but a predicted cold front bringing higher winds and rougher seas prompted mission managers to move the landing site south by about 350 miles, to a point just south of Guadalupe Island some 200 miles west of Baja California.
After a final trajectory correction maneuver early Sunday, the Orion spacecraft plunged back into the discernible atmosphere at an altitude of 400,000 feet at 12:20 p.m.
The re-entry profile was designed to ensure that Orion skipped once across the top of the atmosphere like a flat stone skipping across calm water before making its final descent. As expected, Orion plunged from 400,000 feet to an altitude of about 200,000 feet in just two minutes, then climbed back up to about 295,000 feet before resuming its computer-guided fall to Earth.
Within a minute and a half of entry, atmospheric friction began generating temperatures across the heat shield reaching nearly 5,000 degrees Fahrenheit — half the temperature of the sun’s visible surface — enveloping the spacecraft in an electrically charged plasma that blocked communications with flight controllers for about five minutes.
The Orion spacecraft followed an unusual “skip entry” trajectory during its return to Earth, skipping off the top of the discernible atmosphere like a stone across calm water before a second plunge to splashdown.
NASA
After another two-and-a-half minute communications blackout during its second drop into the lower atmosphere, the spacecraft continued decelerating as it closed in on the landing site, slowing to around 650 mph, roughly the speed of sound, about 15 minutes after the entry began.
Finally, at an altitude of about 22,000 feet and a velocity of just under 300 mph, small drogue parachutes deployed, pulling off a protective cover along with three pilot chutes. Finally, in a welcome sight to the nearby recovery crew, the capsule’s main parachutes unfurled at an altitude of about 5,000 feet, slowing Orion to a sedate 18 mph or so for splashdown.
Mission duration was 25 days 10 hours 52 minutes.
“It was an incredible mission. We accomplished all of our major mission objectives,” said Michelle Zahner, an Orion mission planning engineer. “The vehicle performed every bit as well as we hoped and even better in a lot of ways.
“This is the farthest any human-rated spacecraft has ever gone, and that required a lot of complex analysis and mission planning. To see it all come together and have such a successful test mission was amazing.”
While flight controllers ran into still-unexplained glitches with its power system, initial “funnies” with its star trackers and degraded performance from a phased array antenna, the Orion spacecraft and its European Space Agency-built service module worked well overall, achieving virtually all of their major objectives.
Throughout the Artremis 1 mission, cameras aboard the Orion capsule beamed back spectacular images of the moon and Earth, giving flight controllers – and the public – a ringside seat during the 25-day test flight.
NASA (both)
If all goes well, NASA plans to follow the Artemis 1 mission by sending four astronauts around the moon in the program’s second flight — Artemis 2 — in 2024. The first moon-landing would follow in the 2025-26 timeframe when NASA says the first woman and the next man will set foot on the lunar surface near the south pole.
While the 2024 flight seems achievable based on the results of the Artemis 1 mission, the Artemis 3 moon landing faces a much more challenging schedule, requiring good performance during the Artemis 3 mission and successful development and testing of the lunar lander NASA is paying SpaceX $2.9 billion to develop.
The lander, a variant of the company’s Starship rocket, has not yet flown to space. But it will require multiple robotic refueling flights in low-Earth orbit before heading to the moon to await rendezvous by astronauts launched aboard an Orion capsule.
SpaceX and NASA have provided few details about the development of the Starship moon lander and it’s not yet known when it will be ready to safely carry astronauts to the moon.
Bill Harwood has been covering the U.S. space program full-time since 1984, first as Cape Canaveral bureau chief for United Press International and now as a consultant for CBS News. He covered 129 space shuttle missions, every interplanetary flight since Voyager 2’s flyby of Neptune and scores of commercial and military launches. Based at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida, Harwood is a devoted amateur astronomer and co-author of “Comm Check: The Final Flight of Shuttle Columbia.”
The Artemis I mission — a 25½-day uncrewed test flight around the moon meant to pave the way for future astronaut missions — came to a momentous end as NASA’s Orion spacecraft made a successful ocean splashdown Sunday.
The spacecraft finished the final stretch of its journey, closing in on the thick inner layer of Earth’s atmosphere after traversing 239,000 miles (385,000 kilometers) between the moon and Earth. It splashed down at 12:40 p.m. ET Sunday in the Pacific Ocean off Mexico’s Baja California.
This final step was among the most important and dangerous legs of the mission.
But after splashing down, Rob Navias, the NASA commentator who led Sunday’s broadcast, called the reentry process “textbook.”
“I’m overwhelmed,” NASA Administrator Bill Nelson said Sunday. “This is an extraordinary day.”
The capsule is now bobbing in the Pacific Ocean, where it will remain until nearly 3 p.m. ET as NASA collects additional data and runs through some tests. That process, much like the rest of the mission, aims to ensure the Orion spacecraft is ready to fly astronauts.
“We’re testing all of the heat that has come and been generated on the capsule. We want to make sure that we characterize how that’s going to affect the interior of the capsule,” NASA flight director Judd Frieling told reporters last week.
A fleet of recovery vehicles — including boats, a helicopter and a US Naval ship called the USS Portland — are waiting nearby.
The spacecraft was traveling about 32 times the speed of sound (24,850 miles per hour or nearly 40,000 kilometers per hour) as it hit the air — so fast that compression waves caused the outside of the vehicle to heat to about 5,000 degrees Fahrenheit (2,760 degrees Celsius).
“The next big test is the heat shield,” Nelson had told CNN in a phone interview Thursday, referring to the barrier designed to protect the Orion capsule from the excruciating physics of reentering the Earth’s atmosphere.
The extreme heat also caused air molecules to ionize, creating a buildupof plasma that caused a 5½-minute communications blackout, according to Artemis I flight director Judd Frieling.
As the capsule reached around 200,000 feet (61,000 meters) above the Earth’s surface, it performed a roll maneuver that briefly sent the capsule back upward — sort of like skipping a rock across the surface of a lake.
There are a couple of reasons for using the skip maneuver.
“Skip entry gives us a consistent landing site that supports astronaut safety because it allows teams on the ground to better and faster coordinate recovery efforts,” said Joe Bomba, Lockheed Martin’s Orion aerosciences aerothermal lead, in a statement. Lockheed is NASA’s primary contractor for the Orion spacecraft.
“By dividing the heat and force of reentry into two events, skip entry also offers benefits like lessening the g-forces astronauts are subject to,” according to Lockheed, referring to the crushing forces humans experience during spaceflight.
Another communications blackout lasting about three minutes followed the skip maneuver.
As it embarked on its final descent, the capsule slowed down drastically, shedding thousands of miles per hour in speed until its parachutes deploy. By the time it splashed down, Orion was traveling about 20 miles per hour (32 kilometers per hour).
While there were no astronauts on this test mission — just a few mannequins equipped to gather data and a Snoopy doll — Nelson, the NASA chief, has stressed the importance of demonstrating that the capsule can make a safe return.
The space agency’s plans are to parlay the Artemis moon missions into a program that will send astronauts to Mars, a journey that will have a much faster and more daring reentry process.
Orion traveled roughly 1.3 million miles (2 million kilometers) during this mission on a path that swung out to a distant lunar orbit, carrying the capsule farther than any spacecraft designed to carry humans has ever traveled.
A secondary goal of this mission was for Orion’s service module, a cylindrical attachment at the bottom of the spacecraft, to deploy 10 small satellites. But at least four of those satellites failed after being jettisoned into orbit, including a miniature lunar lander developed in Japan and one of NASA’s own payload that was intended to be one of the first tiny satellites to explore interplanetary space.
On its trip, the spacecraft captured stunning pictures of Earth and, during two close flybys, images of the lunar surface and a mesmerizing “Earth rise.”
Nelson said if he had to give the Artemis I mission a letter grade so far, it would be an A.
“Not an A-plus, simply because we expect things to go wrong. And the good news is that when they do go wrong, NASA knows how to fix them,” Nelson said. But “if I’m aschoolteacher, I would give it an A-plus.”
With the success of the Artemis I mission, NASA will now dive into the data collected on this flight and look to choose a crew for the Artemis II mission, which could take off in 2024.
Artemis II will aim to send astronauts on a similar trajectory as Artemis I, flying around the moon but not landing on its surface.
The Artemis III mission, currentlyslated for a 2025 launch, is expectedto put boots back on the moon, and NASA officials have said it will include the first woman and first person of color to achieve such a milestone.
Closing out a 25-day voyage around the moon, NASA’s Artemis 1 spacecraft closed in on Earth Saturday, on track for a 25,000-mph re-entry Sunday that will subject the unpiloted capsule to a hellish 5,000-degree inferno before splashdown off Baja California.
In an unexpected but richly-symbolic coincidence, the end of the Artemis 1 mission, expected at 12:39 p.m., will come 50 years to the day after the final Apollo moon landing in 1972.
Testing the Orion capsule’s 16.5-foot-wide Apollo-derived Avcoat heat shield is the top priority of the Artemis 1 mission, “and it is our priority-one objective for a reason,” said mission manager Mike Sarafin.
“There is no arc jet or aerothermal facility here on Earth capable of replicating hypersonic reentry with a heat shield of this size,” he said. “And it is a brand new heat shield design, and it is a safety-critical piece of equipment. It is designed to protect the spacecraft and (future astronauts) … so the heat shield needs to work.”
On November 28, halfway through the Artemis 1 mission, a camera on one of the Orion spacecraft’s four solar wings captured this iconic view of the blue-and-white Earth and moon (at lower right).
NASA
Launched November 16 on the maiden flight of NASA’s huge new Space Launch System rocket, the unpiloted Orion capsule was propelled out of Earth orbit and on to the moon for an exhaustive series of tests, putting its propulsion, navigation, power and computer systems through their paces in the deep space environment.
While flight controllers ran into still-unexplained glitches with its power system, initial “funnies” with its star trackers and degraded performance from a phased array antenna, the Orion spacecraft and its European Space Agency-built service module worked well overall, achieving virtually all of their major objectives to this point.
“We’ve collected an immense amount of data characterizing system performance from the power system, the propulsion, GNC (guidance, navigation and control) and so far, the flight control team has downlinked to over 140 gigabytes of engineering and imagery data,” said Jim Geffre, the Orion vehicle integration manager.
The Orion spacecraft followed a trajectory that included a close lunar flyby and a subsequent engine firing to reach the planned “distant retrograde orbit” around the moon. After a half lap, the spacecraft’s engine fired twice more to set up a second close flyby of the moon that, in turn, sent the capsule on its way back to Earth for a Sunday splashdown in the Pacific Ocean west of Baja California.
NASA
The team is already analyzing that data “to help not only understand the performance on Artemis 1, but play forward for all subsequent missions,” he said.
If all goes well, NASA plans to follow the Artemis 1 mission by sending four astronauts around the moon in the program’s second flight — Artemis 2 — in 2024. The first moon-landing would follow in the 2025-26 timeframe when NASA says the first woman and the next man will set foot on the lunar surface.
The unpiloted Artemis 1 capsule flew through half of an orbit around the moon that carried it farther from Earth — 268,563 miles — than any previous human-rated spacecraft. Two critical firings of its main engine set up a low-altitude lunar flyby last Monday that, in turn, put the craft on course for splashdown Sunday.
NASA originally planned to bring the ship down west of San Diego, but a predicted cold front bringing higher winds and rougher seas prompted mission managers to move the landing site south by about 350 miles. Splashdown is now expected south of Guadalupe Island some 200 miles west of Baja California.
Approaching from nearly due south, the Orion spacecraft, traveling at 32 times the speed of sound, is expected to slam back into the discernible atmosphere at an altitude of 400,000 feet, or about 76 miles, at 12:20 p.m.
The Orion spacecraft will fly an unusual “skip entry” trajectory during its return to Earth, skipping off the top of the discernible atmosphere like a stone across calm water before a second plunge to splashdown.
NASA
NASA planners devised a unique “skip-entry” profile that will cause Orion skip across the top of the atmosphere like a flat stone skipping across calm water. Orion will plunge from 400,000 feet to about 200,000 feet in just two minutes, then climb back up to about 295,000 feet before resuming its computer-guided fall to Earth.
Within a minute and a half of entry, atmospheric friction will generate temperatures across the heat shield reaching nearly 5,000 degrees Fahrenheit, enveloping the spacecraft in an electrically charged plasma that will block communications with flight controllers for about five minutes.
After another two-and-a-half minute communications blackout during its second drop into the lower atmosphere, the spacecraft will continue decelerating as it closes in on the targeted landing site, slowing to around 650 mph, roughly the speed of sound, about 15 minutes after the entry began.
Finally, at an altitude of about 22,000 feet and a velocity of around 280 mph, small drogue parachutes will deploy to stabilize the spacecraft. The ship’s main parachutes will deploy at an altitude of about 5,000 feet, slowing Orion to a sedate 18 mph or so for splashdown.
An Orion mockup is hauled into the flooded well deck of a Navy amphibious dock vessel during training to prepare for Sunday’s splashdown and recovery of the actual Artemis 1 spacecraft after its 1.4-million-mile test flight around the moon.
NASA
Expected mission duration: 25 days 10 hours 52 minutes, covering 1.4 million miles since blastoff November 16.
NASA and Navy recovery crews aboard the USS Portland, an amphibious dock vessel, will be standing by within sight of splashdown, ready to secure the craft and tow it into the Navy ship’s flooded “well deck.”
Once the deck’s gates are closed, the water will be pumped out, leaving Orion on a custom stand, protecting its heat shield, for the trip back to Naval Base San Diego.
But first, the recovery team will stand by for up to two hours while engineers collect data on how the heat of re-entry soaked into the spacecraft and what effects, if any, that might have on the crew cabin temperature.
“We are on track to have a fully successful mission with some bonus objectives that we’ve achieved along the way,” Sarafin said. “And on entry day, we will realize our priority one objective, which is to demonstrate the vehicle at lunar re-entry conditions.”
Bill Harwood has been covering the U.S. space program full-time since 1984, first as Cape Canaveral bureau chief for United Press International and now as a consultant for CBS News. He covered 129 space shuttle missions, every interplanetary flight since Voyager 2’s flyby of Neptune and scores of commercial and military launches. Based at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida, Harwood is a devoted amateur astronomer and co-author of “Comm Check: The Final Flight of Shuttle Columbia.”
The International Space Station will receive a power boost during a spacewalk on Saturday, as NASA astronauts Josh Cassada and Frank Rubio install a solar array outside the floating laboratory.
The spacewalk is on track to begin at 7:25 a.m. ET and will last for about seven hours, with live coverage streaming on NASA’s website.
During the event, Cassada will serve as extravehicular crew member 1 and will wear a suit with red stripes, while Rubio will wear an unmarked white suit as extravehicular crew member 2. The duo conducted their first spacewalk together in November. Against the backdrop of spectacular views of Earth, the team assembled a mounting bracket on the starboard side of the space station’s truss.
This hardware allows for the installation of more rollout solar arrays, called iROSAs, to increase electrical power on the space station.
The first two rollout solar arrays were installed outside the station in June 2021. The plan is to add a total of six iROSAs, which will likely boost the space station’s power generation by more than 30% once all are operational.
The arrays were rolled up like carpet and are 750 pounds (340 kilograms) and 10 feet (3 meters) wide.
During Saturday’s spacewalk, Cassada and Rubio will install a solar array to increase capacity in one of the space station’s eight power channels, located on the station’s starboard truss.
Once the array is unfurled and bolted into place by the astronauts, it will be about 63 feet (19 meters) long and 20 feet (6 meters) wide.
The spacewalking duo will also disconnect a cable to reactivate another power channel that recently experienced “unexpected tripping” on November 26.
“By isolating a section of the impacted array, which was one of several damaged strings, the goal is to restore 75% of the array’s functionality,” according to a release from NASA.
Cassada and Rubio will go on another spacewalk on December 19 to install a second roll-out solar array on another power channel, located on the station’s port truss.
The original solar arrays on the space station are still functioning, but they have been supplying power there for more than 20 years and are showing some signs of wear after long-term exposure to the space environment. The arrays were originally designed to last 15 years.
Erosion can be caused by thruster plumes, which come from both the station’s thrusters andthe crew and cargo vehicles that come and go from the station, as well as micrometeorite debris.
The new solar arrays are being placed in front of the original ones. It’s a good test for the new solar arrays, because this same design will power parts of the planned Gateway lunar outpost, which will help humans return to the moon through NASA’s Artemis program.
The new arrays will have a similar 15-year life expectancy. However, since the degradation on the original arrays was expected to be worse, the team will monitor the new arrays to test their true longevity, because they may last longer.
The Oscar-nominated film “Hidden Figures” will offer free screenings on Saturday in 18 cities in honor of Black History Month.
The movie tells the little-known story of several unsung heroes: three black female NASA mathematicians who make it possible for John Glenn to become the first American astronaut to make a complete orbit around Earth.
AMC and Fox announced plans to offer a free 10 a.m. screening for the movie in several cities around the country — and school and community groups can also go online and request a free screening in their community.
Tickets can be reserved here and are first-come-first-served.
“As we celebrate Black History Month and look ahead to Women’s History Month in March, this story of empowerment and perseverance is more relevant than ever,” Liba Rubenstein, 21st Century Fox’s senior vice president of social impact, told Variety. “We at 21CF were inspired by the grassroots movement to bring this film to audiences that wouldn’t otherwise be able to see it — audiences that might include future innovators and barrier-breakers — and we wanted to support and extend that movement.”
The movie will be screened at the following theaters:
AMC Southbay Galleria 16, Redondo Beach, California AMC Aventura 24, Aventura, Florida AMC Southlake Pavilion 24, Atlanta AMC Ford City 14, Chicago AMC Westbank Palace 16, New Orleans AMC White Marsh 16, Baltimore AMC MJ Capital Center 12, Washington, D.C. AMC Southfield 20, Detroit AMC Esquire 7, St. Louis AMC Cherry Hill 24, Cherry Hill, New Jersey AMC Bay Plaza 13, Bronx AMC Mesquite 20, Mesquite, Texas AMC Bay Street 16, Oakland AMC Carolina Pavilion 22, Charlotte
A SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket carrying a Dragon space station supply ship blasts off from the Kennedy Space Center Saturday, kicking off a 17-hour rendezvous. If all goes well, the Dragon, loaded with 7,700-pounds of supplies and equipment, will dock at the lab complex at 7:30 a.m. EST Sunday.
NASA TV
SpaceX launched its 26th space station resupply mission Saturday, sending up 7,700 pounds of equipment and supplies aboard a Dragon cargo ship, including belated Thanksgiving Day treats for the lab’s crew, research gear and two new roll-out solar arrays to boost the station’s power.
Running late because of stormy weather earlier this week, the Falcon 9 rocket’s first-stage engines roared to life at 2:20 p.m. EST and the slender rocket shot away from pad 39A at the Kennedy Space Center. About 12 minutes later, the Cargo Dragon was released to fly on its own.
If all goes well, the spacecraft will chase down the station early Sunday, approaching from behind and below. After looping up in front of the lab and then above it, the capsule will move in for an autonomous docking at the space-facing port of the forward Harmony module.
“Of critical importance to us (are) the two new solar arrays that we’ll be doing spacewalks … to install and deploy on board the International Space Station,” said Joel Montalbano, space station program manager at the Johnson Space Center in Houston.
“And in addition to the two solar arrays, we have some life support equipment being delivered, some GPS hardware, some exercise hardware and some medical equipment. … All in all, we’re looking for an exciting mission.”
Also on board: belated Thanksgiving treats for the station’s seven-member crew, including spicy green beans, cranapple desserts and pumpkin pie.
“In addition, our standard food menu allows them to have everything that we’d be having on Thanksgiving, you know, mashed potatoes, candied yams, mac and cheese for those who want mac and cheese. So we’re going to get those guys fed very well.”
The Cargo Dragon also is loaded with research gear, including an experiment to grow dwarf tomatoes in space, an experimental in-flight medical diagnosis kit, an experiment to test novel techniques for building large structures in microgravity and another that will test new ways to produce key nutrients in space.
A camera on the Falcon 9’s second stage captures a view of the Dragon cargo ship floating away after reaching orbit. A set of rolled-up solar array blankets is visible in the spacecraft’s unpressurized trunk section.
NASA TV
The ISS Roll-Out Solar Arrays, or IROSAs, are the third and fourth of six being installed on the space station in a $103 million upgrade to augment the power output of the lab’s eight older, original-equipment blankets.
The space station was built with four huge rotating solar wings, two on the right side of the lab and two on the left. Each of those four wings is made up of two solar blankets extending from opposite sides of a central hub.
The first pair of original-equipment blankets have been in operation for more than 20 years. Subsequent wings were added in 2006, 2007 and 2009. All of them have suffered degradation from years in the space environment and they do not generate as much power as they did when they were new.
The IROSA blankets, about half the size of the original arrays, are more efficient and will eventually generate an additional 120 kilowatts of power. They were designed to be mounted on brackets at the base of an existing wing, extending outward at a 10-degree angle to minimize the shade they cast on the array below.
NASA is in the process of upgrading the International Space Station’s solar power system. The first two of six roll-out solar array blankets were installed last year, attached to the outboard original-equipment arrays on the far right. Two roll-out arrays launched aboard the Cargo Dragon Saturday will be attached to inboard arrays on the right- and left-side of the station.
NASA
The first two IROSA blankets were installed on the left-side outboard arrays — the oldest set on the station — during spacewalks in 2021. The IROSAs carried up aboard the SpaceX Cargo Dragon Saturday will be installed on the left and right-side inboard wings during spacewalks in December.
“The first two arrays have been performing outstandingly well,” Matt Mickle, development projects senior manager at Boeing, said in a NASA release. “The solar cells are immensely more powerful than previous generations.”
Once all six roll-out arrays are installed, overall power generation will be boosted 20 to 30 percent, roughly matching the output of the original arrays when they were new.
The final two of the six IROSAs currently under contract will be launched next year. It’s not yet known whether NASA will buy two final IROSAs to augment all eight of the station’s original blankets.
Bill Harwood has been covering the U.S. space program full-time since 1984, first as Cape Canaveral bureau chief for United Press International and now as a consultant for CBS News. He covered 129 space shuttle missions, every interplanetary flight since Voyager 2’s flyby of Neptune and scores of commercial and military launches. Based at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida, Harwood is a devoted amateur astronomer and co-author of “Comm Check: The Final Flight of Shuttle Columbia.”
NASA released a selfie taken by the Orion capsule and close-up photos of the moon’s crater-marked landscape as the spacecraft continues on the Artemis 1 mission, a 25-and-a-half day journey that will take it more than 40,000 miles beyond the far side of the moon.
Orion’s latest selfie — taken Wednesday, the eighth day of the mission, by a camera on one of the capsule’s solar arrays — reveals the spacecraft giving angles with a bit of moon visible in the background. The close-up photos were taken Monday as Orion made its closest approach to the moon, passing about 80 miles (129 kilometers) above the lunar surface.
Should Orion complete its trek beyond the moon and back to Earth, it will be the furthest a spacecraft intended to carry humans has ever traveled. For now, the capsule is only carrying inanimate, scientific payloads.
Orion is part of NASA’s Artemis program, which aims to eventually establish a lunar outpost that can permanently host astronauts for the first time in history, in the hopes of one day paving a route to Mars.
The Artemis I mission launched November 16, when NASA’s beleaguered and long-delayed Space Launch System, or SLS, rocket vaulted the Orion capsule to space, cementing the rocket as the most powerful operational launch vehicle ever built.
As of Thursday afternoon, the capsule was 222,993 miles (358,972 kilometers) from Earth and 55,819 miles (89,831 kilometers) from the Moon, zipping along at just over 2,600 miles per hour, according to NASA.
Orion is now about a day from entering a “distant retrograde orbit” around our closest neighbor — distant, because it will be at a very high altitude above the lunar surface, and retrograde, because it will circle the moon in the opposite direction from which the moon travels around Earth.
The path is meant to “stress test” the Orion capsule, as Michael Sarafin, NASA’s Artemis mission manager, put it last week.
According to NASA’s Artemis blog, the agency’s television coverage of the distant retrograde orbit insertion burn is scheduled for 4:30 p.m. ET Friday and the burn is scheduled to take place at 4:52 p.m. ET.
After lapping the moon, the Orion capsule is expected to turn back toward Earth and make a gentle splashdown landing in the Pacific Ocean on December 11.
NASA’s unpiloted Orion moonship, sailing smoothly toward a remote lunar orbit after a spectacular low-altitude flyby Monday, is operating in near-flawless fashion, mission managers reported Monday, out-performing expectations on a flight to pave the way toward the first piloted mission in 2024.
An analysis of the huge Space Launch System rocket that boosted the Orion capsule on its way early Wednesday showed it performed almost exactly as expected, taking off atop 8.8 million pounds of thrust and producing a ground-shaking shock wave that literally blew the doors off launch pad elevators.
The core stage’s four upgraded space shuttle main engines and twin solid-fuel boosters propelled the 322-foot-tall rocket out of the atmosphere and into space almost exactly as planned. At main engine cutoff, the SLS was within 3 miles of its target altitude and within 5 mph of the predicted velocity.
A stunning “selfie” of the Orion spacecraft and the moon as the capsule closed in for a course-changing lunar flyby.
NASA/CBS News
“When you think about the size of the system that we have and how much performance it puts out when the engines are full at throttle … the core stage engine shutdown missed by seven feet per second, which is simply remarkable,” said Artemis 1 Mission Manager Mike Sarafin.
The rocket’s upper stage provided a trouble-free boost out of Earth orbit, sending the Orion spacecraft on its way to the moon.
“The vehicle continues to operate exceptionally, we have seen really good performance across the board on all our subsystems and systems, and certainly really happy with the performance,” said Orion program manager Howard Hu. “Today was a terrific day.”
He had reason to be pleased. Early Monday, the capsule reached its target, using its main engine to set up a low-altitude flyby that carried the spacecraft within about 80 miles of the lunar surface.
The Earth sets on the lunar horizon as the Orion spacecraft passes out of contact over the far side of the moon.
NASA
Cameras mounted on the tips of the spacecraft’s solar arrays captured stunning views of Earth, looking like a blue-and-white marble in the deep black of space, slowly setting on the lunar horizon as the spacecraft sailed out over the far side of the moon and out of contact with flight controllers.
Using the moon’s gravity to fling it back toward deep space, the Orion sailed directly over the Apollo 11 landing site in the Sea of Tranquility before heading out toward the intended “distant retrograde orbit” that will carry it farther from Earth than any previous human-rated spacecraft.
“In terms of overall system failures, we haven’t seen a single thing on the rocket or on the spacecraft that would have caused us to question our reliability or our redundancy, which is why this has largely been a nominal mission,” Sarafin said.
“There have been a number of things where our plans and our predicts didn’t quite match what we thought from an engineering and from a modeling standpoint … but overall, it’s been largely a green-light flight.”
The Space Launch System rocket is the most powerful in the world, generating 8.8 million pounds of thrust and a liftoff pressure wave that literally blew the doors off launch pad elevators. NASA managers said the overall damage to the pad was minor and will be repaired in plenty of time for the next SLS launch in 2024
NASA
That said, engineers are wrestling with two relatively minor glitches: engineers have to periodically restart the capsule’s star tracker navigation sensors after unexpected automatic resets; and an issue with an electrical power distribution system component. Neither is expected to affect the mission.
Looking ahead, the Orion must execute another critical engine firing Friday to actually enter the planned distant retrograde orbit, then carry out a third burn December 1 to break away from that trajectory. A fourth engine firing December 5 is needed to set up another close lunar flyby.
That burn, the “return powered flyby” maneuver, will slingshot Orion back toward Earth for a high-speed reentry and splashdown in the Pacific Ocean west of San Diego on December 11.
Asked how he felt about the mission given its smooth, relatively problem-free start, Sarafin said “we are on flight day six of a 26-day mission, so I would give it a cautiously optimistic A-plus.” But he quickly added, “we’re taking it very seriously. I will rest well on December 11, after splashdown and recovery is complete.”
Bill Harwood has been covering the U.S. space program full-time since 1984, first as Cape Canaveral bureau chief for United Press International and now as a consultant for CBS News. He covered 129 space shuttle missions, every interplanetary flight since Voyager 2’s flyby of Neptune and scores of commercial and military launches. Based at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida, Harwood is a devoted amateur astronomer and co-author of “Comm Check: The Final Flight of Shuttle Columbia.”
Out of contact on the far side of the moon, NASA’s unpiloted Orion crew capsule carried out a critical rocket firing and lunar flyby Monday, flinging the craft toward a distant orbit for tests intended to pave the way to a piloted flight in 2024.
NASA managers met Saturday, four days after Orion’s sky-lighting launch, and gave flight controllers a “go” to proceed with Orion’s “outbound powered flyby” maneuver, a two-and-a-half-minute firing of the spacecraft’s main engine starting at 7:44 a.m. EST Monday.
Dramatic live video from cameras mounted on the spacecraft showed Earth slowly approaching the limb of the moon and then disappearing as Orion passed out of contact behind the moon at 7:25 a.m. Nineteen minutes later, still out of contact, Orion executed the engine firing on its own as planned.
Two images from a camera mounted on one of the Orion spacecraft’s solar arrays show the capsule’s view a few minutes before passing out of view on the far side of the moon, cutting off contact with flight controllers.
NASA TV
Two images from a camera mounted on one of the Orion spacecraft’s solar arrays show the capsule’s view a few minutes before passing out of view on the far side of the moon, cutting off contact with flight controllers.
NASA TV
A few minutes after that, the spacecraft made its closest approach to the moon at an altitude of about 81 miles, moving back into contact with flight controllers at 7:59 a.m. A striking image from one of Orion’s cameras showed Earth as a small blue orb floating in the deep black of space 230,000 miles away.
Now outbound, the spacecraft passed almost directly over the Apollo 11 landing site in the Sea of Tranquility about an hour after the OPF rocket firing.
After emerging from behind the moon, Orion sent back this image of Earth some 230,000 miles away.
NASA
A second firing of Orion’s main engine Friday at 4:52 p.m. will put Orion in the planned “distant retrograde orbit,” or DRO, so named because the spacecraft will be moving from left to right, beyond the moon, as viewed from Earth.
Six days later, a third main engine firing will send Orion back toward the moon for a second powered flyby on December 5. That fourth and final burn will put the spacecraft on a course back to Earth with splashdown in the Pacific Ocean west of San Diego expected at 12:40 p.m. EST on Dec. 11.
Bill Harwood has been covering the U.S. space program full-time since 1984, first as Cape Canaveral bureau chief for United Press International and now as a consultant for CBS News. He covered 129 space shuttle missions, every interplanetary flight since Voyager 2’s flyby of Neptune and scores of commercial and military launches. Based at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida, Harwood is a devoted amateur astronomer and co-author of “Comm Check: The Final Flight of Shuttle Columbia.”
Nearly five days after its sky-lighting launch, NASA’s unpiloted Orion crew capsule closed in on the moon Sunday, on course for a critical rocket firing and lunar flyby Monday to whip the craft into a distant orbit. The goal is to pave the way toward a piloted flight around the moon in 2024.
NASA managers met Saturday and gave flight controllers a “go” to proceed with Orion’s “outbound powered flyby” maneuver, a two-and-a-half-minute firing of the spacecraft’s main engine starting at 7:44 a.m. EST Monday, about 19 minutes after the capsule passes behind the moon on a left-to-right trajectory as viewed from Earth.
The burn will change Orion’s velocity by about 350 mph, committing the craft to a course-changing flyby. And it will be executed during the 34 minutes Orion is out of contact with flight controllers.
A camera mounted one of the Orion spacecraft’s four solar wings captured this “selfie” showing the unpiloted capsule 57,000 miles from Earth during the outbound trip to the moon following launch Wednesday from the Kennedy Space Center.
NASA
Two minutes after passing within about 80 miles of the lunar surface at 7:57 a.m., Orion will swing back into contact as it whips around the moon on a trajectory that will carry the spacecraft back out toward a planned “distant retrograde orbit,” or DRO.
In that planned orbit, Orion will reach a point farther from Earth — 268,558 miles — than any previous human-rated vehicle, as flight controllers test its propulsion, navigation and power systems.
“We’ll do the burn … off the backside of the moon for about two and a half minutes,” said Flight Director Jeff Radigan. “And the burn will really put us on our way to the (planned) distant retrograde orbit, which is where we’re going to continue the checkout of Orion.
“All of us will really be looking to receive data since the burn is done on the backside of the moon and we’ll lose comm with a vehicle for a little bit of time, it’ll autonomously do the burn. And then we’ll pick it up and see how Orion’s doing.”
Orion’s initial post-launch flight path was set up to carry the spacecraft around the moon and back to Earth even if the main engine failed to fire. After the burn, a free return will no longer be possible and Orion will be reliant on its propulsion system to make it back to Earth.
A second firing of Orion’s main engine Friday at 4:52 p.m. will put Orion in the distant retrograde orbit, so named because the spacecraft will again be moving from left to right, beyond the moon, as viewed from Earth. Six days later, a third main engine firing will send Orion back toward the moon for a second powered flyby on December 5.
That fourth and final burn will put the spacecraft on course for Earth with splashdown in the Pacific Ocean west of San Diego planned for 12:40 p.m. EST on December 11.
The primary goal of the Artemis 1 mission is to test the Orion heat shield during a high-speed re-entry from the moon when the spacecraft will be subjected to 5,000-degree heat from atmospheric friction.
Assuming the initial test flight goes well and no major problems are encountered, NASA plans to launch the Artemis 2 mission atop a Space Launch System mega rocket in 2024, carrying four astronauts on a trip around the moon.
That flight will be followed by the Artemis 3 mission to land the first woman and the next man near the moon’s south pole in the 2025-26 timeframe.
Bill Harwood has been covering the U.S. space program full-time since 1984, first as Cape Canaveral bureau chief for United Press International and now as a consultant for CBS News. He covered 129 space shuttle missions, every interplanetary flight since Voyager 2’s flyby of Neptune and scores of commercial and military launches. Based at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida, Harwood is a devoted amateur astronomer and co-author of “Comm Check: The Final Flight of Shuttle Columbia.”
