CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. (AP) — NASA’s Orion capsule entered an orbit stretching tens of thousands of miles around the moon Friday as it neared the midpoint of its test flight.
The capsule and its three test dummies entered lunar orbit more than a week after the $4 billion demonstration launch, which is supposed to pave the way for astronauts. It will remain in this wide but stable orbit for nearly a week, completing only half a lap before heading home.
When the engine ignited on Friday, the capsule was 238,000 miles (380,000 kilometers) from Earth. It is expected to reach a maximum distance of almost 270,000 miles (432,000 kilometers) in a few days. This would set a new distance record for a capsule designed to carry humans one day.
“It’s a statistic, but it’s symbolic of what it represents,” Orion manager Jim Geffre said in an interview with NASA earlier this week. “It’s about challenging ourselves to go further, stay longer and push beyond the boundaries of what we’ve explored before.”
NASA considers this a dress rehearsal for the next lunar flyby in 2024 with astronauts. An astronaut landing on the moon could follow as soon as 2025. Astronauts last visited the moon 50 years ago during Apollo 17.
Earlier in the week, mission control in Houston lost contact with the capsule for nearly an hour. At the time, the controllers were setting up the communications link between Orion and the Deep Space Network. Officials said the spacecraft remains healthy.
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