Mission Begins Departure from Lunar Orbit I NASA’s Artemis

NASA will begin coverage of the Orion spacecraft performing the first of two maneuvers to exit lunar orbit, called the distant retrograde orbit departure burn, on Dec. 1 at 4:30 p.m. EST (21:30 UTC). The burn is scheduled at 4:53 p.m. EST (21:53 UTC).

Orion launched aboard the Space Launch System (SLS) rocket at 1:47 a.m. EST (06:47 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 (21:52 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.