NASA’s plans for returning to the lunar surface are just one among many space-related headlines these days.
And if that’s not a sign of how far things have advanced since the first lunar landings, we don’t know what is.
Nonetheless, going back to the moon is a huge deal and, luckily for us, NASA is more than happy to provide us with a preview of what is to come with some snapshots and video from the test run of the Orion.
Today’s pics depict Orion halfway between the Earth and the moon and more than a few cameras helped make this possible.
“Over the past few days, a team assessed anomalous star tracker data that correlated with thruster firings. Star trackers are sensitive cameras that take pictures of the star field around Orion. By comparing the pictures to its built-in map of stars, the star tracker can determine which way Orion is oriented. Teams now understand the readings and there are no operational changes.”
Orion also deployed a ring of 10 CubeSats, so named because of their small size. These satellites will be on a different mission from the Orion craft and are currently in testing according to NASA’s blog post.
The agency has summarized the journey thus far in an episode of “Artemis All Access,” available at this link, as well as content over on NASA’s Flickr account. You can watch the video of the lunar pic at this link.
If you haven’t checked it out yet, be sure to look at our coverage of the James Webb telescope and all of the amazing pics sent back thus far.
Check out our other headlines at this link.
[NASA]
