{"id":11167,"date":"2022-11-22T17:35:30","date_gmt":"2022-11-22T09:35:30","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wp-productionenv-bjg9h2g2bgg5b8aa.southeastasia-01.azurewebsites.net\/news\/nasa-managers-thrilled-with-initial-results-of-artemis-moon-mission\/"},"modified":"2022-11-22T17:35:30","modified_gmt":"2022-11-22T09:35:30","slug":"nasa-managers-thrilled-with-initial-results-of-artemis-moon-mission","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/news\/nasa-managers-thrilled-with-initial-results-of-artemis-moon-mission\/","title":{"rendered":"NASA managers thrilled with initial results of Artemis moon mission"},"content":{"rendered":"

STORY WRITTEN FOR CBS NEWS & USED WITH PERMISSION<\/p>\n

\"\"
NASA\u2019s Orion spacecraft, pictured by a solar array wingtip camera, with the moon in the background. Credit: NASA<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

NASA\u2019s 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 needed to pave the way toward the first piloted mission in 2024.<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

The core stage\u2019s 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.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen 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 \u2026 the core stage engine shutdown missed by seven feet per second, which is simply remarkable,\u201d said Artemis 1 Mission Manager Mike Sarafin.<\/p>\n

The rocket\u2019s upper stage provided a trouble-free boost out of Earth orbit, sending the Orion spacecraft on its way to the moon.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe 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,\u201d said Orion program manager Howard Hu. \u201cToday was a terrific day.\u201d<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

Cameras mounted on the tips of the spacecraft\u2019s 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.<\/p>\n

Using the moon\u2019s 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 \u201cdistant retrograde orbit\u201d that will carry it farther from Earth than any previous human-rated spacecraft.<\/p>\n

\u201cIn terms of overall system failures, we haven\u2019t 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,\u201d Sarafin said.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere have been a number of things where our plans and our predicts didn\u2019t quite match what we thought from an engineering and from a modeling standpoint \u2026 but overall, it\u2019s been largely a green-light flight.\u201d<\/p>\n

That said, engineers are wrestling with two relatively minor glitches: engineers have to periodically restart the capsule\u2019s 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.<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

That burn, the \u201creturn powered flyby\u201d maneuver, will slingshot Orion back toward Earth for a high-speed re-entry and splashdown in the Pacific Ocean west of San Diego on December 11.<\/p>\n

Asked how he felt about the mission given its smooth, relatively problem-free start, Sarafin said \u201cwe are on flight day six of a 26-day mission, so I would give it a cautiously optimistic A-plus.\u201d But he quickly added, \u201cwe\u2019re taking it very seriously. I will rest well on December 11, after splashdown and recovery is complete.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

STORY WRITTEN FOR CBS NEWS & USED WITH PERMISSION NASA\u2019s Orion spacecraft, pictured by a solar array wingtip camera, with the moon in the background. Credit: NASA NASA\u2019s 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 […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-11167","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11167"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=11167"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11167\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=11167"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=11167"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=11167"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}