Orion spacecraft successfully completed Artemis I lunar mission despite damage

Late last year, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA)

) successfully completed the first lunar mission under the Artemis program. As it turned out, the Orion ship was damaged during the flight, but this did not prevent it from achieving its goals.

What is known

Space Launch System (SLS) rocket in the middleNovember 2022 sent Orion into space. The largest spacecraft in history returned to Earth in December of the same year, after which NASA specialists began to explore it.

Orion exceeded the expectations of scientists.During the flight, he completed 161 tasks. In addition, during the Artemis I mission, the space agency set 21 other goals for the ship, which were also achieved.

The key objective of the Orion was a successful landing,which he successfully did. The ship landed at a speed of 25 km/h within a radius of 4 km from the target. In this case, the maximum allowable deviation was 10 km.

During the test, NASA experts found thatthe thermal insulation has been damaged. The protective material was charred during the spacecraft's return home. And it didn't happen the way the simulation predicted.

The space agency believes that the Artemis missionII will take place as scheduled. It is scheduled for November 2024. The ship, along with the crew on board, will go on an 8-day trip around the moon.