The US space agency, “NASA”, said that its “Orion” vehicle is expected to fly near the surface of the moon, tomorrow, Monday, as part of its unmanned journey to the moon.
NASA added, in a statement, that the entry of the Orion spacecraft into the lunar field of influence will make the moon the main gravitational force acting on the spacecraft, instead of the planet Earth, reports a local Arabic daily.
According to NASA, the Orion spacecraft will make its closest approach to the surface of the moon, at a distance of about 128 kilometers.
NASA explained that 4 days after the spacecraft flew over the surface of the moon, another burn using the European service unit, the “Orion” vehicle — launched on its way to the moon last Wednesday from the Kennedy Space Center — will enter a distant retrograde orbit, where it will remain for about a week to test the spacecraft systems.
The unmanned NASA flight to the moon witnessed several delays due to various circumstances, the latest of which was the fuel leak, which caused the Artemis-1 rocket to stop working since August, after which Hurricane Ian forced it to return to the hangar at the Kennedy Center. to space at the end of September, during which time the US space agency took the time to make repairs to it.
The Artemis-1 rocket will carry an empty crew capsule to orbit the moon and back for a dramatic flight test before astronauts aboard a crewed flight in two years.
This is the largest step by NASA so far to return astronauts to the moon by 2025, since the last human landing on the surface of the moon, and that was on December 17, 1972.
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