The Orion capsule passed just 130 km from the moon’s surface on Monday, but then quickly moved away and is spinning at an altitude of 40,000 km at a speed of 5,000 km/h. Another historic moment is coming on Saturday: reaching the furthest point.

Orion is now more than 330,000 km from Earth and more than 40,000 km from the surface of the Moon. NASA says everything went almost perfectly and everyone breathed a sigh of relief after the SLS launch went so rough (5 years late and several failed attempts in recent weeks).

Essentially, Orion performed a “powered flyby” past the Moon, where it used its engines to prepare for an extended orbit. The first maneuver was done on Monday, the second will be on Friday.

• The Orion capsule reached the moon on the sixth day of its nearly four-week mission

Monday’s maneuver was carried out by the European Airbus Service Module, which houses the engines, solar panels, communications equipment and other essential elements. This service module will NOT return to Earth, but will detach on December 11 from the capsule, with little time to reach the ocean.

The capsule itself, which is also to be used in the next two manned missions, was built by Lockheed Martin. Various parts of the SLS rocket were created by Boeing, Northrop Grumman and United Launch Alliance (a joint venture between Lockheed Martin Space and Boeing Defense, Space & Security).

“The vehicle is performing extremely well,” said Howard Hu, Orion’s program manager. The mission reached its 7th day, on Monday the engines successfully fired for 150 seconds and the capsule made its first maneuver to successfully enter an extended orbit around the Moon (called a deep retrograde orbit – DRO). Orion will enter DRO on November 25.

Orion will remain in this retrograde orbit for six days, during which the shuttle’s systems will be tested to predict what might go wrong when humans are inside the capsule during the Artemis 2 mission in 2024.

On Friday, the 25th, the service module will perform another important maneuver, the engines will briefly fire, and the capsule will enter an extended retrograde orbit.

November 26 will be an important symbolic moment: Orion will reach more than 400,000 km from Earth, surpassing the record set by the space shuttle Apollo 13 in 1970, the farthest point ever reached by a spacecraft capable of carrying humans.

On November 28, as part of the Artemis 1 mission, the maximum distance from Earth will be reached: 430,000 km.

On December 1, the European Service Module will maneuver Orion out of DRO, and on December 5, the capsule will make another close flyby of the lunar surface.

The final power-up will put Orion on a trajectory toward Earth, a trip that will last nearly six days.

December 11 is the day of the return to Earth, and for NASA employees it will be emotional: the entry into the atmosphere will take place at a speed of almost 40 thousand km / h, and the heat shield will have to withstand 2700 C. High-performance parachutes must open to slow down the capsule’s fall as much as possible in ocean.