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Return leg of Orion


NASA's Orion spacecraft made its way back to Earth on December 1 by performing one of the two actions that will place the spacecraft in the right direction to splash down in the Pacific Ocean in a week and an hour.

The main engine of Orion's service module exploded around 4.53 p.m. Eastern for 1 minute and 45 seconds. The burn pushed Orion out of the long circular orbit about the moon it had been in since November 25.

Orion is heading back towards the moon, where it will carry out another manoeuvre, known as "the return-powered flyby", on December 5. The second flyby will prepare Orion for reentry and a landing off the California coast on December 11.

In November 30 briefing, NASA management said that the spacecraft was performing perfectly with minor problems. "We are very happy that our system works flawlessly. It's far better than we anticipated," said Philippe Deloo, ESA program manager for the European Service Module. The spacecraft produced more power than expected; however, it used less power than we expected due to its greater thermal stability.

It is propulsion mechanism includes the main engine, which is a repurposed shuttle-era Orbital Maneuvering System engine and several other thrusters, as well as the reaction control system thrusters are also working, the engineer said, despite issues with its development of it. "The regulation of the propulsion system has been our trouble child throughout development, and it has just worked beautifully," he said. "No problem whatsoever with this propulsion system."

This lack of problems has allowed controllers to conduct more tests on the spacecraft. "With how well the mission is going, we have found ourselves, rather than having to work anomalies, able to push the boundaries," said Zebulon Scoville, Deputy Chief Flight Director Zebulon Scoville, deputy. He said that would lower the risks to astronauts on Artemis 2, the first crewed mission.

Mission directors had earlier added seven goals for the flight during the spacecraft's time in a distant retrograde orbit to evaluate the thermal properties of the spacecraft's propulsion system. This included firing a thruster to keep the orbit on the previous day, November 30. The thruster burning employed auxiliary thrusters to last longer than the previous ones to test how they would perform.

Mike Sarafin, Artemis 1 mission manager, announced that they'd added four additional goals for the mission's return phase. Two are tests on a helium valve pressurization system to measure the leakage rate. The third test will be to determine whether it is possible to perform the ability to control attitude with a higher speed, as well as the fourth test, an alternative attitude control method that could be able to save propellant.

"We all came into the mission expecting to have challenges," Scoville said, with controllers undergoing intensive training to deal with such issues. "Instead, it’s kind of purring along and staying very smooth. The kinds of discussions we’re having are how to rev the engine a little bit harder and how to push it a little bit harder and faster."

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