NASA’s Orion capsule, a new spacecraft designed to carry future astronauts to deep space, successfully entered orbit around the moon on Friday.
The uncrewed spacecraft ignited its main engine at 4:52 p.m. Eastern time for one minute and 28 seconds, allowing it to enter what NASA terms a distant retrograde orbit, completing one of the primary goals of the agency’s Artemis I mission.
The mission is intended to show the Orion capsule is functional and safe for humans. The vehicle will now remain in an elongated lunar orbit for the next week, allowing NASA to test how the craft’s hardware holds up in the radiation-filled environment of deep space.
