The uncrewed Orion capsule of NASA's Artemis I mission sailed within 130 km of the lunar surface on Monday. It achieved the closest approach to the moon for a spacecraft built to carry humans since Apollo 17 flew half a century ago, according to a NASA expert panel on Monday.
The capsule's lunar flyby, on the return leg of its debut voyage, came a week after Orion reached its farthest point in space, which was nearly 434,522 km from Earth, midway through its 25-day mission, the U.S. space agency said on its website.
Orion passed about 127 km above the lunar surface on Monday as the spacecraft fired its thrusters for a "powered flyby burn," designed to change the vehicle's velocity and set it on course for its flight back to Earth. NASA said the 3-1/2-minute burn would mark the last major spaceflight maneuver for Orion before it was due to parachute into the sea and splash down on Dec. 11.
The last time a spacecraft designed for human travel came as close to the moon as Orion was the final mission of the Apollo program, Apollo 17, which carried Gene Cernan and Harrison Schmitt to the lunar surface 50 years ago this month. They were the last of 12 NASA astronauts who walked on the moon during a total of six Apollo missions from 1969 to 1972.
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