It’s the first time a space capsule has visited the Moon since the Apollo program 50 years ago.
NASA's Orion space capsule passed within 80 miles of the Moon's surface.NASA’s Orion space capsule has reached the Moon, and NASA posted images Monday morning showing the capsule arriving in the neighborhood.
The approach came on the far side of the Moon. Due to the flight path there was a communication lag of about a half-hour. Flight controllers in Houston were in the dark about some key functions of the Orion capsule until it emerged from behind the Moon. Because of the communication blackout, the controllers did not know if the critical engine firing went well until the capsule emerged from behind the Moon.
Kristi Morgansen is chair of Aeronautics and Astronautics at the University of Washington. She spoke to KIRO 7 and said she had attended the first few launch attempts when the rocket launch was scrubbed. She was not able to attend the night launch on Nov 16. “Until you verify that everywhere along the way — that everything’s going properly, we don’t want to send humans off to Mars until we’re really sure it’s going to be OK. There’s still a lot we don’t know and that’s part of what we’ll do on the Moon,” said Morgansen.
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