Yesterday, March 7, NASA management officially announced the successful completion of the first Artemis 1 mission under the global lunar program using the Orion spacecraft. Space agency experts reported that on November 16, 2022, the Space Launch System carrier rocket, the most powerful carrier rocket that mankind has ever launched, delivered the Orion spacecraft to Earth orbit and launched it into space, and then launched into space. orbit of the moon. After that, the NASA spacecraft flew around the Earth’s satellite and returned to the home planet 25 days after the start of this space mission. And while the process didn’t go as smoothly as expected, NASA is happy with the outcome.
For example, the agency said it was the first flight of the Space Launch System and passed almost perfectly, meeting all expectations from the launch vehicle. However, there were critical problems during the first Moon mission as well – NASA experts reported that the Orion ship’s heat shield was not working properly and lost more material than the agency expected. NASA said that computer simulations showed a completely different result, but the space agency still believes that the ship has proven itself perfectly and is ready for a manned flight as part of the Artemis 2 mission – astronauts must fly around the Moon inside the ship.
“The material of the heat shield didn’t collapse as we initially expected. During the return home, elements of the ship’s display moved away in a completely different way than our computer simulations and ground tests had predicted, so the ship lost much more charred material as it entered the atmosphere. Howard Hu, NASA’s Orion program manager, said. “We’re going to have to look into this matter in detail,” he said.
At the same time, the ship performed and even exceeded the tasks set in space – 21 additional research targets were added during the flight, so that in the end Orion completed 161 missions within the framework of 25 days of flight. In addition, the ship managed to land on Earth with incredible accuracy – in the end, it deviated only 4 kilometers from the indicated landing point. And although this may seem like a huge deviation to someone, in fact, experts assume a deviation of up to 10 kilometers from the initial landing point. Accordingly, the ship exceeded all expectations and estimates, except for the damage to the heat shield.
Now NASA will actively prepare the spacecraft for the Artemis 2 launch in November 2024, meanwhile it will study the spacecraft and possibly upgrade the spacecraft so that next time there are no problems with the crew on the spacecraft.
Source: Port Altele
