NASA’s Artemis I Mission Return Trip Lunar Flyby

On Dec. 5, NASA will air the lunar flyby of the Orion spacecraft on its return trek toward Earth. Orion completed a burn on Dec. 1 to exit a lunar orbit thousands of miles beyond the Moon, where engineers have been testing systems to improve understanding of the spacecraft before future missions with astronauts. The return-powered flyby burn, in which the spacecraft will harness the Moon’s gravity and accelerate back toward Earth, is expected at 11:43 a.m. (1643 UTC) The spacecraft is expected to fly about 79 miles above the lunar surface at 11:42 a.m. (16:42 UTC) just before the burn.

Orion launched aboard the Space Launch System (SLS) rocket at 1:47 am EST (0647 UTC) on Nov. 16 from historic Launch Complex 39B at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center. Orion entered a distant retrograde orbit at 4:52 p.m. EST (2152 UTC) on Nov. 25, where the spacecraft has been testing systems in a deep space environment.

The Artemis I mission is the first integrated test of NASA’s deep space exploration systems: the Orion spacecraft, the SLS rocket, and Kennedy Space Center ground systems.