It's the first time a capsule has visited the moon since the Apollo program 50 years ago.
CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. — NASA’s Orion capsule reached the moon Monday, whipping around the back side and passing within 80 miles on its way to a record-breaking lunar orbit.
The moon loomed ever larger in the video beamed back earlier in the morning, as the capsule closed the final few thousand miles since blasting off last Wednesday from Florida’s Kennedy Space Center, atop the most powerful rocket ever built by NASA. Orion needed to slingshot around the moon to pick up enough speed to enter the sweeping, lopsided lunar orbit. If all continues to go well, another engine firing will place the capsule in that orbit Friday.
Orion has no lunar lander; a touchdown won’t come until NASA astronauts attempt a lunar landing in 2025 with SpaceX’s Starship. Before then, however, astronauts will strap into Orion for a ride around the moon as early as 2024.
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