NASA's Artemis 1 Orion has set a new record for the spacecraft designed to carry humans to deep space by travelling 419,378 kilometres from Earth. The record was previously set during the Apollo 13 mission at 248,655 miles from our home planet.
For the next six days, Orion will remain in lunar orbit. It will then put the spacecraft on a trajectory back to Earth, followed by a Sunday, December 11, splashdown in the Pacific Ocean, a press release by NASA said.
NASA, in a build-up to the landmark event, said, “Today, NASA Orion Spacecraft will break the record for farthest distance of a spacecraft designed to carry humans to deep space and safely return them to Earth. This record is currently held by Apollo 13.” The text was attached to a video featuring the Apollo astronauts and flight directors who spoke about the future of Artemis. Take a look:
NASA is expected to use innovative measures to learn more about the Moon's South Pole. The agency will also try to understand the lunar surface with the help of the Gateway Space Station in orbit, the press note added.
The spacecraft has a sensor named Commander Moonikin Campos attached to it. It will help provide information on what crew members may experience in flight. The Campos is named after Arturo Campos, the key player in bringing Apollo 13 safely back to Earth.
Answering questions at a discussion conducted by NASA on Twitter, Jim Geffre, Orion's spacecraft integration manager, said, "Artemis 1 was designed to stress the systems of Orion and we settled on the distant retrograde orbit as a really good way to do that."
