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Asteroid’s sudden flyby shows blind spot in planetary threat detection

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WASHINGTON, Jan 29 (Reuters) – The discovery of an asteroid the size of a small shipping truck mere days before it passed Earth on Thursday, albeit one that posed no threat to humans, highlights a blind spot in our ability to predict those that could actually cause damage, astronomers say.

NASA for years has prioritized detecting asteroids much bigger and more existentially threatening than 2023 BU, the small space rock that streaked by 2,200 miles from the Earth’s surface, closer than some satellites. If bound for Earth, it would have been pulverized in the atmosphere, with only small fragments possibly reaching land.

But 2023 BU sits on the smaller end of a size group, asteroids 5-to-50 meters in diameter, that also includes those as big as an Olympic swimming pool. Objects that size are difficult to detect until they wander much closer to Earth, complicating any efforts to brace for one that could impact a populated area.

The probability of an Earth impact by a space rock, called a meteor when it enters the atmosphere, of that size range is fairly low, scaling according to the asteroid’s size: a 5-meter rock is estimated to target Earth once a year, and a 50-meter rock once every thousand years, according to NASA.

But with current capabilities, astronomers can’t see when such a rock targets Earth until days prior.

“We don’t know where most of the asteroids are that can cause local to regional devastation,” said Terik Daly, a planetary scientist at the Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory.

The roughly 20-meter meteor that exploded in 2013 over Chelyabinsk, Russia is a once-every-100-years event, according to NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory. It created a shockwave that shattered tens of thousands of windows and caused $33 million in damage, and no one saw it coming before it entered Earth’s atmosphere.

Some astronomers consider relying only on statistical probabilities and estimates of asteroid populations an unnecessary risk, when improvements could be made to NASA’s ability to detect them.

“How many natural hazards are there that we could actually do something about and prevent for a billion dollars? There’s not many,” said Daly, whose work focuses on defending Earth from hazardous asteroids.

AVOIDING A REALLY BAD DAY

One major upgrade to NASA’s detection arsenal will be NEO Surveyor, a $1.2 billion telescope under development that will launch nearly a million miles from Earth and surveil a wide field of asteroids. It promises a significant advantage over today’s ground-based telescopes that are hindered by daytime light and Earth’s atmosphere.

That new telescope will help NASA meet a goal assigned by Congress in 2005: detect 90% of the total expected amount of asteroids bigger than 140 meters, or those big enough to destroy anything from a region to an entire continent.

“With Surveyor, we’re really focusing on finding the one asteroid that could cause a really bad day for a lot of people,” said Amy Mainzer, NEO Surveyor principal investigator. “But we’re also tasked with getting good statistics on the smaller objects, down to about the size of the Chelyabinsk object.”

NASA has fallen years behind on its congressional goal, which was ordered for completion by 2020. The agency proposed last year to cut the telescope’s 2023 budget by three quarters and a two-year launch delay to 2028 “to support higher-priority missions” elsewhere in NASA’s science portfolio.

Asteroid detection gained greater importance last year after NASA slammed a refrigerator-sized spacecraft into an asteroid to test its ability to knock a potentially hazardous space rock off a collision course with Earth.

The successful demonstration, called the Double Asteroid Redirection Test (DART), affirmed for the first time a method of planetary defense.

“NEO Surveyor is of the utmost importance, especially now that we know from DART that we really can do something about it,” Daly said.

“So by golly, we gotta find these asteroids.”

Reporting by Joey Roulette; Editing by Andrea Ricci

Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

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Science

Asteroid’s sudden flyby shows blind spot in planetary threat detection

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By Joey Roulette

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The discovery of an asteroid the size of a small shipping truck mere days before it passed Earth on Thursday, albeit one that posed no threat to humans, highlights a blind spot in our ability to predict those that could actually cause damage, astronomers say.

NASA for years has prioritized detecting asteroids much bigger and more existentially threatening than 2023 BU, the small space rock that streaked by 2,200 miles from the Earth’s surface, closer than some satellites. If bound for Earth, it would have been pulverized in the atmosphere, with only small fragments possibly reaching land.

But 2023 BU sits on the smaller end of a size group, asteroids 5-to-50 meters in diameter, that also includes those as big as an Olympic swimming pool. Objects that size are difficult to detect until they wander much closer to Earth, complicating any efforts to brace for one that could impact a populated area.

The probability of an Earth impact by a space rock, called a meteor when it enters the atmosphere, of that size range is fairly low, scaling according to the asteroid’s size: a 5-meter rock is estimated to target Earth once a year, and a 50-meter rock once every thousand years, according to NASA.

But with current capabilities, astronomers can’t see when such a rock targets Earth until days prior.

“We don’t know where most of the asteroids are that can cause local to regional devastation,” said Terik Daly, a planetary scientist at the Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory.

The roughly 20-meter meteor that exploded in 2013 over Chelyabinsk, Russia is a once-every-100-years event, according to NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory. It created a shockwave that shattered tens of thousands of windows and caused $33 million in damage, and no one saw it coming before it entered Earth’s atmosphere.

Some astronomers consider relying only on statistical probabilities and estimates of asteroid populations an unnecessary risk, when improvements could be made to NASA’s ability to detect them.

“How many natural hazards are there that we could actually do something about and prevent for a billion dollars? There’s not many,” said Daly, whose work focuses on defending Earth from hazardous asteroids.

AVOIDING A REALLY BAD DAY

One major upgrade to NASA’s detection arsenal will be NEO Surveyor, a $1.2 billion telescope under development that will launch nearly a million miles from Earth and surveil a wide field of asteroids. It promises a significant advantage over today’s ground-based telescopes that are hindered by daytime light and Earth’s atmosphere.

That new telescope will help NASA meet a goal assigned by Congress in 2005: detect 90% of the total expected amount of asteroids bigger than 140 meters, or those big enough to destroy anything from a region to an entire continent.

“With Surveyor, we’re really focusing on finding the one asteroid that could cause a really bad day for a lot of people,” said Amy Mainzer, NEO Surveyor principal investigator. “But we’re also tasked with getting good statistics on the smaller objects, down to about the size of the Chelyabinsk object.”

NASA has fallen years behind on its congressional goal, which was ordered for completion by 2020. The agency proposed last year to cut the telescope’s 2023 budget by three quarters and a two-year launch delay to 2028 “to support higher-priority missions” elsewhere in NASA’s science portfolio.

Asteroid detection gained greater importance last year after NASA slammed a refrigerator-sized spacecraft into an asteroid to test its ability to knock a potentially hazardous space rock off a collision course with Earth.

The successful demonstration, called the Double Asteroid Redirection Test (DART), affirmed for the first time a method of planetary defense.

“NEO Surveyor is of the utmost importance, especially now that we know from DART that we really can do something about it,” Daly said.

“So by golly, we gotta find these asteroids.”

(Reporting by Joey Roulette; Editing by Andrea Ricci)

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Science

Watch an SUV-sized asteroid zoom by Earth in close shave flyby

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Asteroid 2023 BU zipped past Earth Thursday night (Jan. 26) to the delight of amateur astronomers worldwide. For skywatchers without access to a telescope or those who had their view hampered by bad weather, luckily the Italy-based Virtual Telescope Project was there to observe the event and livestream the whole thing for free.

The Virtual Telescope is a robotic telescope operated by Italian amateur astronomer Gianluca Masi near Rome, Italy. As 2023 BU hurtled toward Earth, the telescope was able to track the rock through a gap in the clouds when it was about 13,670 miles (22,000 kilometers) from the closest point on Earth’s surface (about the altitude of the GPS navigation satellite constellation) and 22,990 miles (37,000 km) from the Virtual Telescope. 

Masi, who shared an hour-long webcast of the observations on the Virtual Telescope website, wasn’t able to capture the closest approach as clouds rolled in, however. Nonetheless, the Virtual Telescope Project was able to get a good look at the car-sized rock, seen in time-lapse above.

Related: NASA’s DART asteroid impact won’t make Dimorphos hit Earth — but here’s what would happen if it did

The Italy-based Virtual Telescope captured asteroid 2023 BU shortly before its closest approach to Earth. (Image credit: The Virtual Telescope Project)

The rock, discovered less than a week ago on Saturday (Jan. 21), passed above the southern tip of South America at 7:27 p.m. EST on Thursday Jan. 26 (0027 GMT on Jan. 27), at a distance of only 2,240 miles (3,600 km) at its closest point to Earth’s surface. 

This close approach makes 2023 BU the fourth nearest asteroid ever observed from Earth, with the exception of five space rocks that were detected before diving into Earth’s atmosphere. 

Only 11.5 to 28 feet wide (3.5 to 8.5 meters), 2023 BU posed no danger to the planet. If the trajectories of the two bodies had intersected, the asteroid would mostly have burned up in the atmosphere with only small fragments possibly falling to the ground as meteorites. 

In the videos and images shared by Masi, the asteroid is seen as a small bright dot in the center of the frame, while the longer, brighter lines are the surrounding stars. In reality, of course, it was the asteroid that was moving with respect to Earth, traveling at a speed of 21,000 mph (33,800 km/h) with respect to Earth. As Masi’s computerized telescope tracked its positionthe rock appeared stationary in the images while rendering the stars as these moving streaks.

The gravitational kick that 2023 BU received during its encounter with Earth will alter the shape of its orbit around the sun. Previously, the space rock followed a rather circular orbit, completing one lap around the sun in 359 days. From now on, BU 2023 will travel through the inner solar system on a more elliptical path, venturing half way toward Mars at the farthest point of its orbit. This alteration will add 66 days to BU 2023’s orbital period. 

The asteroid was discovered by famed Crimea-based astronomer and astrophotographer Gennadiy Borisov, the same man who in 2018 found the first interstellar comet, which now bears his name, Borisov.

Follow Tereza Pultarova on Twitter @TerezaPultarova. Follow us on Twitter @Spacedotcom and on Facebook. 



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Juno spacecraft regaining its memory after mind-blowing Jupiter flyby, NASA says

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NASA’s Juno probe is continuing to recover its memory at Jupiter after a data disruption interrupted communications between the spacecraft and its operators on Earth following a flyby of the giant planet in December. 

The Juno spacecraft’s latest flyby of Jupiter, its 47th close pass of the planet, was completed on Dec. 14. But as its operators at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory were receiving science data from the flyby they found they could no longer directly access the spacecraft’s memory.

The team successfully rebooted Juno’s computer and on Dec. 17 they placed the spacecraft into “safe mode” with only essential systems operating as a precaution. As of a Dec. 22 NASA update (opens in new tab), steps taken by the team to recover Juno’s science data had been proceeding positively. Juno’s operators are now successfully downlinking the flyby data.

“The science data from the solar-powered spacecraft’s most recent flyby of Jupiter and its moon Io appears to be intact,” NASA wrote in the update.

Related: The 10 most massive mysteries of Jupiter

The interruption is currently believed to have been caused when Juno flew through the intense radiation of a portion of Jupiter’s magnetosphere. There is no indication that the radiation spike has damaged data from its close approach to Jupiter or its flyby of the volcanic Jupiter moon Io. 

The remaining data from Juno’s latest flyby is expected to be beamed back to Earth the next few days at which point operators can assess if it has been affected by the disruption.

Juno left Earth in August 2011, traveling 1.7 million miles and entering orbit around the gas giant planet 5 years later on July 4, 2016. Becoming the first spacecraft to see through Jupiter’s dense clouds, Juno’s aim was to answer questions about Jupiter’s composition and origins.

Related: NASA’s Juno spacecraft snaps its most detailed view of icy moon Europa

Juno takes 53 Earth days to orbit Jupiter, with its primary mission of Juno calling for 35 orbit, during which it collected 3 terabits of scientific data and some incredible images of Jupiter and its moons. Because Jupiter is thought to be the solar system’s oldest world, learning more about it could reveal information about the formation of the solar system itself. 

This data changed many of the ideas planetary scientists had about Jupiter’s atmosphere and interior by revealing an atmospheric weather layer stretching far beyond its water clouds as well as a deep interior with a dilute heavy element core.

The spacecraft’s primary mission ended in July and the spacecraft is expected to continue its extended science operations until at least 2025 according to the Planetary Society (opens in new tab).

The spacecraft was expected to exit safe mode this week and will make its next flyby of Jupiter on Jan. 22, 2023.

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NASA posts high resolution images of Orion’s final lunar flyby

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Orion just made its final pass around the moon on its way to Earth, and NASA has released some of the spacecraft’s best photos so far. Taken by a high-resolution camera (actually a heavily modified GoPro Hero 4) mounted on the tip of Orion’s solar arrays, they show the spacecraft rounding the Moon then getting a closeup shot of the far side. 

The photos Orion snapped on its first near pass to the Moon were rather grainy and blown out, likely because they were captured with Orion’s Optical Navigation Camera rather than the solar array-mounted GoPros. Other GoPro shots were a touch overexposed, but NASA appears to have nailed the settings with its latest series of shots. 

Space photos were obviously not the primary goal of the Artemis I mission, but they’re important for public relations, as NASA learned many moons ago. It was a bit surprising that NASA didn’t show some high-resolution closeups of the Moon’s surface when it passed by the first time, but better late than never.

Orion’s performance so far has been “outstanding,” program manager Howard Hu told reporters last week. It launched on November 15th as part of the Artemis 1 mission atop NASA’s mighty Space Launch System. Days ago, the craft completed a three and a half minute engine burn (the longest on the trip so far) to set it on course for a splashdown on December 11th.

The next mission, Artemis II, is scheduled in 2024 to carry astronauts on a similar path to Artemis I without landing on the moon. Then, humans will finally set foot on the lunar surface again with Artemis III, slated for launch in 2025. 

All products recommended by Engadget are selected by our editorial team, independent of our parent company. Some of our stories include affiliate links. If you buy something through one of these links, we may earn an affiliate commission. All prices are correct at the time of publishing.

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NASA posts high resolution images of Orion’s final lunar flyby

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Orion just made its final pass around the moon on its way to Earth, and NASA has released some of the spacecraft’s best photos so far. Taken by a high-resolution camera (actually a heavily modified GoPro Hero 4) mounted on the tip of Orion’s solar arrays, they show the spacecraft rounding the Moon then getting a closeup shot of the far side. 

The photos Orion snapped on its first near pass to the Moon were rather grainy and blown out, likely because they were captured with Orion’s Optical Navigation Camera rather than the solar array-mounted GoPros. Other GoPro shots were a touch overexposed, but NASA appears to have nailed the settings with its latest series of shots. 

Space photos were obviously not the primary goal of the Artemis I mission, but they’re important for public relations, as NASA learned many moons ago. It was a bit surprising that NASA didn’t show some high-resolution closeups of the Moon’s surface when it passed by the first time, but better late than never.

Orion’s performance so far has been “outstanding,” program manager Howard Hu told reporters last week. It launched on November 15th as part of the Artemis 1 mission atop NASA’s mighty Space Launch System. Days ago, the craft completed a three and a half minute engine burn (the longest on the trip so far) to set it on course for a splashdown on December 11th.

The next mission, Artemis II, is scheduled in 2024 to carry astronauts on a similar path to Artemis I without landing on the moon. Then, humans will finally set foot on the lunar surface again with Artemis III, slated for launch in 2025. 

All products recommended by Engadget are selected by our editorial team, independent of our parent company. Some of our stories include affiliate links. If you buy something through one of these links, we may earn an affiliate commission. All prices are correct at the time of publishing.

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After lunar flyby, NASA’s Orion spacecraft is set to splash down on Sunday

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Enlarge / Orion, the Moon, and a crescent Earth on Monday.

NASA

The Orion spacecraft swung by the Moon on Monday, flying to within 130 km of that world’s surface as it set course for a return to Earth this weekend.

In making this “powered flyby burn” to move away from the Moon, Orion’s service module performed its longest main engine firing to date, lasting 3 minutes and 27 seconds. After successful completion of the maneuver, NASA’s mission management team gave the “go” to send recovery teams out into the Pacific Ocean, where Orion is due to splashdown on Sunday, during the middle of the day.

By getting into an orbit around the Moon, and back out of it again during its deep space mission, Orion has now completed four main propulsive burns. This completes a big test of the spacecraft and its propulsive service module, which was built by the European Space Agency. Although a boilerplate version of Orion made a flight in 2014, it did so without a service module.

As part of this Artemis I mission, NASA is now three weeks into a 25.5-day test flight of the Orion spacecraft. The goal is to validate the spacecraft’s capabilities ahead of a human flight of the vehicle in about two years’ time, the Artemis II mission.

Orion has met most of its main objectives to date, with only the entry, descent, and splashdown part of its mission ahead of it. The spacecraft’s heat shield must demonstrate its ability to survive reentry at a velocity of 39,400 kph. This big test will come Sunday during a fiery reentry into Earth’s atmosphere.

A minor power issue

So far, Orion’s test flight has gone remarkably well. Typically, with new spacecraft, there are issues with thrusters, navigation, or onboard avionics and more. However, Orion has had no major issues. The only real troubleshooting has involved a problem with power systems on the vehicle.

The issue has occurred with four “latching current limiters” that help route power to propulsion and heating systems on Orion. For some reason, automated controllers on Orion commanded the four current limiters to “open” when no such command was supposed to be sent. “We’re not exactly sure on the root cause of the problem, but teams are doing tests on the ground,” said Debbie Korth, the Orion Program deputy manager, during a briefing on Monday evening at Johnson Space Center in Houston.

Enlarge / Overall, the Orion spacecraft has performed like a champion.

NASA

This system is somewhat like a circuit breaker box in a home, and for some reason four of the breakers were opened when they were not supposed to be. This did not pose a threat to Orion, as there are backup power systems. Had a crew been on board it would have required a minor procedure to account for the problem.

In an interview after the news briefing, Korth said she did not think the glitch would have an impact on the service module that will be used for the Artemis II mission. This hardware is already built and being tested in the United States.

“I think it’s probably too early to say for sure, but ideally we will not want to perturb the Artemis II service module,” she said. “This may very well be something we can handle with software.”

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Artemis 1 Orion on track for return to Earth after moon flyby

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For NASA’s Orion spacecraft, the next stop is home.

The uncrewed spacecraft flying on NASA’s Artemis 1 mission passed a major milestone in its mission today (Dec. 5) when it successfully performed a 207-second engine burn while just just 79 miles (128 kilometers) above the lunar surface. The maneuver placed Orion on track to return home, where it will splash down in the Pacific Ocean on Dec. 11, if all goes according to plan.

And in a media teleconference on Monday (Dec. 5), Orion spaceccraft mission managers asserted that so far, that’s exactly how everything is going. “Everything that vehicle was asked to do, it’s done. And it’s done it phenomenally,” said Judd Frieling, flight director at NASA’s Johnson Space Center (JSC).

Related: Artemis 1 Orion spacecraft completes crucial moon flyby for trip home

A view of the moon from NASA’s Artemis 1 Orion spacecraft as it approaches its final close flyby of the lunar surface on Dec. 5, 2022. (Image credit: NASA TV)

Mike Sarafin, Artemis mission manager at NASA Headquarters in Washington, spoke more poetically during the teleconference about the incredible feats Orion has already performed, such as breaking the human-rated spacecraft distance record previously set by Apollo 13. “We got to see the Earth transit behind the moon extending beyond the pale of human spaceflight. We got to see a flyby of the moon as part of the return powered flyby and witness the Earthrise for the first time in the Artemis generation,” Sarafin told reporters. “When we’re done with this mission, we will have traveled over 1.4 million miles in the course of the 26-day mission. And we are on track to do that.” 

That’s not to say that every aspect of Orion’s maiden voyage is going smoothly. Mission managers also discussed a pair of anomalies the spacecraft encountered in recent days, which include a communication outage and an anomaly with a power system aboard Orion. 

Mission managers described during tonight’s teleconference how a site-wide outage at the Deep Space Network site in Goldstone, California caused a four-and-a-half hour disruption in communication between ground controllers and Orion. Luckily, the outage was caused by a hardware issue at the ground station and not by any Orion hardware, allowing teams the opportunity to quickly reestablish contact. 

Additionally, a power conditioning distribution unit onboard Orion malfunctioned on Sunday (Dec. 4), cutting off power to four devices responsible for the vehicle’s propulsion and heating subsystems. Power was swiftly restored, however, and NASA wrote in a statement (opens in new tab) that power to Orion’s critical systems, navigation or communication systems was never interrupted.

“We talked through that today, as a mission management team, and the spacecraft is fine. There’s plenty of redundancy on the vehicle,” Sarafin said today about the power anomaly. “And that in combination with timely work by our operations teams really resulted in no mission impact and no concern there.”

Even the Callisto voice-activated digital assistant onboard Orion is performing well, according to Debbie Korth, Orion Program deputy manager at JSC. “First of all, on performance so far, it’s been really great,” Korth said about Callisto. “I got to witness several of the sessions – very, very interactive, very engaging, in terms of being able to talk to the spacecraft, turn lights on and off, write notes or play music, ask questions. It’s just a really very good engagement opportunity and I think it has some potential for how we would use that further.”

There are still a few tests to conduct while Orion’s shakedown flight is still underway, but as of now, the mission is proceeding so smoothly that mission managers are now looking forward to the next “pre-planned decision gate” that will occur on Thursday (Dec. 8) when a landing site off the coast of California is selected for Orion’s Dec. 11 landing.

A complex range of factors including wind speed, wave height and wave period (the time between waves) will be taken into consideration to determine where in the Pacific Ocean to land Orion. NASA and U.S. Navy teams are already coordinating ahead of the recovery operation that will see Orion fished from the sea and brought back to land for analysis.

Follow Brett on Twitter at @bretttingley (opens in new tab). Follow us on Twitter @Spacedotcom (opens in new tab) or on Facebook (opens in new tab).  



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Artemis 1 Orion spacecraft saw power blip hours before lunar flyby

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NASA’s Orion spacecraft had a brief power problem on Sunday (Dec. 4) just hours before successfully completing a crucial engine burn near the moon.

A power unit on board the Orion spacecraft turned off four devices “responsible for downstream power” that connect to the Artemis 1 vehicle’s propulsion and heating subsystems, NASA officials wrote in a statement (opens in new tab). But mission personnel swiftly put a fix in place and the mission is carrying on, the statement emphasized.

“Teams confirmed the system was healthy and successfully repowered the downstream components,” agency officials wrote in the statement, released late on Sunday. “There was no interruption of power to any critical systems, and there were no adverse effects to Orion’s navigation or communication.”

In photos: Artemis 1 launch: Amazing views of NASA’s moon rocket debut 

Despite the hiccup, Orion appeared to sail through a crucial engine burn near the moon Monday (Dec. 5) to put it on course for a splashdown in the Pacific Ocean on Dec. 11. The issue occurred shortly after a different trajectory burn on Sunday that started at 11:43 a.m. EST (1643 GMT), and NASA is investigating the cause.

The power glitch was identified shortly after Orion came back into contact with NASA’s Deep Space Network at 1:41 p.m. EST (1841 GMT) on Sunday, following a planned power outage; Orion periodically is out of contact with Earth as it flies on the back side of the moon, where it cannot beam signals to antennas on our planet.

NASA engineers are unsure whether the issue is linked to a previous problem with the devices, which are called umbilical latching current limiters. On Flight Day 5 of the mission, around Nov. 21, one of the eight devices opened (opens in new tab) without a command. Engineers commanded the device to close and had no issue in doing so, officials said at the time.

Orion is on a journey to iron out kinks like this ahead of the first crewed mission, which is expected to be Artemis 2 in 2024 or so. The flight has had other minor problems, such as temporary faults in the capsule’s random access memory and an issue during which Orion fell out of contact with Earth for 47 minutes. 

Nevertheless, Artemis 1 has so far checked off all of its required major mission milestones since its launch on Nov. 16.

Elizabeth Howell is the co-author of “Why Am I Taller (opens in new tab)?” (ECW Press, 2022; with Canadian astronaut Dave Williams), a book about space medicine. Follow her on Twitter @howellspace (opens in new tab). Follow us on Twitter @Spacedotcom (opens in new tab) or Facebook (opens in new tab).



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NASA’s Orion capsule makes farewell flyby of the moon

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CNN
 — 

The historic Artemis I mission, which is sending an uncrewed spacecraft on an unprecedented trip around the moon, is now in the final stretch of its historic journey.

Orion, as NASA’s new space capsule is called, made another pass by the surface of the moon Monday morning, capturing views of notable lunar sites, including a couple Apollo landing sites. The spacecraft then passed just 80 miles (128.7 kilometers) above the lunar surface, its second close flyby of the moon.

After that, Orion fired up its main engine for about three and a half minutes — the longest burn conducted on its trip thus far. The engine burn set the capsule on its final path home, kicking off the last leg of its 25-and-a-half-day trip.

The Artemis I mission lifted off on November 16, when NASA’s beleaguered and long-delayed Space Launch System (SLS) rocket vaulted the Orion capsule to space, cementing its status as the most powerful operational launch vehicle ever built. The SLS rocket’s thrust exceeded that of the Saturn V rocket, which powered the 20th-century moon landings, by 15%.

Orion separated from the rocket after reaching space and has since been on a journey circumnavigating the moon. About a week ago, the capsule entered what’s called a “distant retrograde orbit” around the moon, allowing it to swing more than 40,000 miles (64,374 kilometers) beyond the moon’s far side. That’s farther than any spacecraft designed to carry humans has ever flown.

The spacecraft is now set to traverse the 238,900-mile (384,400-kilometer) void between the moon and Earth. It’s expected to plunge back into Earth’s atmosphere on December 11, a process that will create enough pressure to heat its exterior to more than 5,000 degrees Fahrenheit (2,760 degrees Celsius).

If astronauts were on board, they’d be protected by a heat shield.

Upon reentry, Orion will be traveling at 20,000 miles per hour (32,187 kilometers per hour), or more than 26 times the speed of sound. All of that energy will be dispersed as the capsule crashes back into Earth’s dense inner atmosphere and then releases its parachutes to further slow its descent before its splashdown in the Pacific Ocean.

All told, the Orion capsule will have traveled more than 1.3 million miles in space.

NASA has been preparing for this mission for more than a decade. Following its successful completion, the space agency will then look to choose a crew to fly the Artemis II mission, which could take off as soon as 2024. Artemis II will aim to send astronauts on a similar trajectory as Artemis I, flying around the moon but not landing on its surface.

That could pave the way in turn for the Artemis III mission, which is currently slated for a 2025 launch — and is expected to put a woman and a person of color on the moon for the first time. It would also mark humans’ first visit to the lunar surface in half a century.

The Orion spacecraft’s performance has been “outstanding,” Howard Hu, the Orion program manager, told reporters last week.

The space agency did have to troubleshoot some minor issues, including an unexpected communications blackout that lasted nearly an hour. But NASA officials said there have been no major problems, and so far have chalked up the mission as a resounding success.

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