Orion sailed directly over the Apollo

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Cameras mounted on the tips of the spacecraft’s solar arrays captured stunning views of Earth, looking like a blue-and-white marble in the deep black of space, slowly setting on the lunar horizon as the spacecraft sailed out over the far side of the moon and out of contact with flight controllers.

Using the moon’s gravity to fling it back toward deep space, the 11 landing site in the Sea of Tranquility before heading out toward the intended “distant retrograde orbit” that will carry it farther from Earth than any previous human-rated spacecraft.

“In terms of overall system failures, we haven’t seen a single thing on the rocket or on the spacecraft that would have caused us to question our reliability or our redundancy, which is why this has largely been a nominal mission,” Sarafin said.

“There have been a number of things where our plans and our buy phone number list predicts didn’t quite match what we thought from an engineering and from a modeling standpoint … but overall, it’s been largely a green-light flight.”

The Space Launch System rocket is the most powerful in the world, generating 8.8 million pounds of thrust and a liftoff pressure wave that literally blew the doors off launch pad elevators. NASA managers said the overall damage to the pad was minor and will be repaired in plenty of time for the next SLS launch in 2024

That said, engineers are wrestling with two relatively minor glitches: engineers have to periodically restart the capsule’s star tracker navigation sensors after unexpected automatic resets; and an issue with an electrical power distribution system component. Neither is expected to affect the mission.

Looking ahead, the Orion must execute another critical engine firing Friday to actually enter the planned distant retrograde orbit, then carry out a third burn December 1 to break away from that trajectory. A fourth engine firing December 5 is needed to set up another close lunar flyby.