Orion completes small mid-course-correction engine burn as it prepares to swing around behind the Moon
The Moon as seen by Orion’s astronauts on April 4th, cropped
and reduced to post here. Click for original image.
NASA’s manned Orion capsule last night completed small mid-course-correction engine burn to refine the spacecraft’s trajectory around the Moon and back to Earth.
Mission control teams in Houston and the Artemis II crew completed an outbound correction burn to refine the Orion spacecraft’s trajectory to the Moon. The burn began at 11:03 p.m. EDT and lasted 17.5 seconds. NASA astronauts Reid Wiseman, Victor Glover, and Christina Koch, along with CSA (Canadian Space Agency) astronaut Jeremy Hansen, continue on a precise path to flyby the Moon on Monday, April 6.
The lunar fly-by is scheduled for this evening. As the capsule swings around behind the Moon, there will be a communications black-out from 6:44 pm (Eastern) to 7:25 pm (Eastern). NASA is making a concerted PR effort to compare this to the Apollo 8 mission around the Moon, but the differences are gigantic. Apollo 8 went into orbit around the Moon. There was considerable risk it could get stuck there if its engine failed to fire properly when behind the Moon on its last orbit. Thus, that Apollo 8 blackout was quite tension-filled.
Orion’s fly-around is instead completely benign. They aren’t going into orbit, and they are already on their path back to Earth. There will be no extra element of risk as they fly behind the Moon. All they will be doing is coast along, as they have been doing since leaving Earth orbit. They will simply be out of touch for about 40 minutes.
I sadly remain personally bored by this mission. It is is testing relatively little new engineering for future use, and is mostly designed as a PR stunt to convince everyone that “NASA is back!” Hardly. The capabilities of SLS and Orion are extremely limited, and both are ungodly expensive. Neither will make possible any colonization of the solar system. All they do is act as a jobs program for government employees.
And there still remains this mission’s biggest moment of danger, re-entry and splashdown, using Orion’s questionable heat shield that did not behave properly on its only previous unmanned mission in 2022.
On Christmas Eve 1968 three Americans became the first humans to visit another world. What they did to celebrate was unexpected and profound, and will be remembered throughout all human history. Genesis: the Story of Apollo 8, Robert Zimmerman's classic history of humanity's first journey to another world, tells that story, and it is now available as both an ebook and an audiobook, both with a foreword by Valerie Anders and a new introduction by Robert Zimmerman.
The print edition can be purchased at Amazon or from any other book seller. If you want an autographed copy the price is $60 for the hardback and $45 for the paperback, plus $8 shipping for each. Go here for purchasing details. The ebook is available everywhere for $5.99 (before discount) at amazon, or direct from my ebook publisher, ebookit. If you buy it from ebookit you don't support the big tech companies and the author gets a bigger cut much sooner.
The audiobook is also available at all these vendors, and is also free with a 30-day trial membership to Audible.
"Not simply about one mission, [Genesis] is also the history of America's quest for the moon... Zimmerman has done a masterful job of tying disparate events together into a solid account of one of America's greatest human triumphs."--San Antonio Express-News
The Moon as seen by Orion’s astronauts on April 4th, cropped
and reduced to post here. Click for original image.
NASA’s manned Orion capsule last night completed small mid-course-correction engine burn to refine the spacecraft’s trajectory around the Moon and back to Earth.
Mission control teams in Houston and the Artemis II crew completed an outbound correction burn to refine the Orion spacecraft’s trajectory to the Moon. The burn began at 11:03 p.m. EDT and lasted 17.5 seconds. NASA astronauts Reid Wiseman, Victor Glover, and Christina Koch, along with CSA (Canadian Space Agency) astronaut Jeremy Hansen, continue on a precise path to flyby the Moon on Monday, April 6.
The lunar fly-by is scheduled for this evening. As the capsule swings around behind the Moon, there will be a communications black-out from 6:44 pm (Eastern) to 7:25 pm (Eastern). NASA is making a concerted PR effort to compare this to the Apollo 8 mission around the Moon, but the differences are gigantic. Apollo 8 went into orbit around the Moon. There was considerable risk it could get stuck there if its engine failed to fire properly when behind the Moon on its last orbit. Thus, that Apollo 8 blackout was quite tension-filled.
Orion’s fly-around is instead completely benign. They aren’t going into orbit, and they are already on their path back to Earth. There will be no extra element of risk as they fly behind the Moon. All they will be doing is coast along, as they have been doing since leaving Earth orbit. They will simply be out of touch for about 40 minutes.
I sadly remain personally bored by this mission. It is is testing relatively little new engineering for future use, and is mostly designed as a PR stunt to convince everyone that “NASA is back!” Hardly. The capabilities of SLS and Orion are extremely limited, and both are ungodly expensive. Neither will make possible any colonization of the solar system. All they do is act as a jobs program for government employees.
And there still remains this mission’s biggest moment of danger, re-entry and splashdown, using Orion’s questionable heat shield that did not behave properly on its only previous unmanned mission in 2022.
On Christmas Eve 1968 three Americans became the first humans to visit another world. What they did to celebrate was unexpected and profound, and will be remembered throughout all human history. Genesis: the Story of Apollo 8, Robert Zimmerman's classic history of humanity's first journey to another world, tells that story, and it is now available as both an ebook and an audiobook, both with a foreword by Valerie Anders and a new introduction by Robert Zimmerman.
The print edition can be purchased at Amazon or from any other book seller. If you want an autographed copy the price is $60 for the hardback and $45 for the paperback, plus $8 shipping for each. Go here for purchasing details. The ebook is available everywhere for $5.99 (before discount) at amazon, or direct from my ebook publisher, ebookit. If you buy it from ebookit you don't support the big tech companies and the author gets a bigger cut much sooner.
The audiobook is also available at all these vendors, and is also free with a 30-day trial membership to Audible.
"Not simply about one mission, [Genesis] is also the history of America's quest for the moon... Zimmerman has done a masterful job of tying disparate events together into a solid account of one of America's greatest human triumphs."--San Antonio Express-News
From an amateur astronomer / lunar observer’s perspective, it is nice to be able to peek over and get a good look at part of the moon’s far side. Prior to the Soviet Luna 3 mission in 1959, we could see — with libration — only about 59% of its surface, and it was fun to view ordinarily inaccessible limb areas as they leaned over toward us. Sure, all of the moon has now been imaged in exquisite detail, but it’s still exciting for some of us to see the “dark side” in real time.
PS — When watching the NASA Artemis feed a little while ago on CSPAN, the image of the moon was seriously overexposed, and it was hard to make out much detail. It would be nice if someone at Mission Control cold fix this. (Oh, wait. The camera is probably so automated that you can’t even set the aperture or otherwise adjust the image. Oh brave new world.)
“I sadly remain personally bored by this mission. . . “
That’s Bob’s opinion. I wonder what Astronaut Katy Perry thinks about the mission.
Like most remakes with bigger budgets and flashier special effects, it lacks the drama and suspence of the original. Of course, there are few of us left who remember the original.
Many people recognize this as a stunt without any value. I am getting so tired of headlines using the phrase Darkside of the moon (a Pink Floyd album cover) And the claim of seeing and taking pictures of part of the moon that’s never been seen before? Ignorance is widespread.
Babylon Bee is having fun, at first an article that Elon is sending a plumber to fix the toilet… (how much did it cost for a toilet that doesn’t work? Thank goodness for back up diapers)
And now this, making fun of Canada‘s fifth? largest cause of death… Assisted suicide! now for people who “don’t” want to die.
https://babylonbee.com/news/canadian-astronaut-humanely-euthanized-after-suffering-light-bruise-during-takeoff
I can’t help but think SpaceX delayed it’s next test flight for political reasons. “Not to rain on NASA’s parade”. Embarrassing the hand that can choke you should be avoided.
You’re a hard man, Mr. Z!
Here’s an interesting video from photographer Jared Polin regarding the cameras used during this mission, and a comparison of the Blue Marble image to the Hello World image.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=51WNE4Nb0J0
Patrick Underwood: If telling the truth, and looking at reality with a cold eye, makes me a “hard man,” than so be it. I won’t live in a fantasy world, especially when it comes to doing things as difficult and as challenging and as dangerous as exploring and colonizing the solar system. Fantasies will only kill you in that environment.
Re: heat shield
I sent some family and friends the image from Behind the Black of the 2022 heat shield after re-entry, along with the BtB articles. The most common response was W T F??
Praying every day for the safe return of the astronauts.
Watching the NASA feed off-n-on. If I didn’t already have some idea of what was going, I’d never be able to figure it out, by watching the NASA feed. (Those Japanese & Indian launches are looking a lot better now! SpaceX has spoiled us all.)
I have no good idea where we are oriented in space, no simple telemetry, zero concept of how fast, direction, location of Earth, etc. It’s pretty sad.
Not advocating they go full autist, but they could have found somebody….
———————————————————–
Apollo 8, Artemis 1 & 2 Orbit Comparison
The Overview Effekt (April 4, 2026)
https://youtu.be/PNQ7MoL7erI
(12:10)
Was said with humor. :)
Agree with you on the merits but watching the crew fly behind the moon, can say I haven’t had this much fun since the early shuttle days, before the disillusionment began to set in. Guess I have a sentimental streak!
Early days. Certainly there is reason to be more hopeful than a few months ago. YMMV.
(Perhaps I should keep that hope inside until Saturday.)
RZ says: “Neither will make possible any colonization of the solar system. All they do is act as a jobs program for government employees.”
Respectfully disagree. In the world of something v nothing, I am quite happy with the bit flip to something after 54 years. Yes, like Apollo 8, it is something of a stunt. OTOH, been there, done that was 2 generations ago. You gots to start somewhere. I am happy with the start, hopeful that it won’t be another 54 years before we do it again. A second step in a second move to the Moon rather than a complete solution. Cheers –
Bored, Mr. Zimmerman…really?
I bet if they had been riding Starship, you’d be gushing.
Lunar Starship is nowhere to be scene.
Ideology blinds.
I dunno, the space-toilet memes and Babylon Bee articles have made this mission a resounding success for me.
Life support seems good to go. Now all they got to do is survive reentry, and there’s a very good chance they will. Although there’s only a 87% chance of that.
I’m really enjoying the show and so are my adult children. For them this is their first live lunar experience and not just an old photo from the past. They can follow along real time with full internet video access of the event in exquisite detail and narrative.
If this is just a publicity stunt, it has worked beautifully at capturing the attention of a younger audience and igniting their interest.
The youth will be the populating worlds beyond this one, this event may well rekindle the fires of exploration.
jburn: Then we must all pray deeply that nothing bad happens during re-entry. If so, it will be Challenger all over again, not simply because NASA put schedule above safety, but because it did so in a manner that had lots of kids watching the tragedy happen.
A little confused by the NASA X’s. They say it’s the first time the Other Side of the Moon has been seen by Human eyes. Were the Apollo astronauts non-Human? Was that side of the Moon obscured? By duststorms, perhaps? Curious about the assertion.
Blair Ivey: It’s a lie by distraction. If you read carefully what NASA says or writes carefully, they always qualify this statement to give themselves an out, but do so obscurely that most won’t notice.
jburn,
I wonder how much sustained interest there will be. Artemis I saw many predictions that it would lead to a groundswell of support for NASA and the SLS, and neither happened. I doubt there will be ongoing interest and support until we’re actively building a base and people are operating there, and even then, it will be something that most people outside the space community will only think of obliquely. It will take being able to send ordinary people, at prices ordinary people can afford (say, $10,000-$50,000 for a trip to orbit) to really ignite enthusiasm. Which segues nicely into Jeff Wright’s complaint-yes, it would be different watching people aboard Starship, because the latter has the promise of everyday people eventually riding aboard, and that will never happen with the SLS.
Z writes:
” It is is testing relatively little new engineering for future use, and is mostly designed as a PR stunt to convince everyone that “NASA is back!” ”
Mostly, yes. I think there’s also a dash of “Make it look like the Chinese aren’t beating us.”
Not that I think they are, but it’s a poke in the Chinese eye, to some small degree.
Nate P:
Per your observations (I would say ‘anent’, but that word has been taken), my experience with Jane Q Public is that some know about the mission, some watched the launch, aaand, that defines the limits of interest. During Apollo, and early Shuttle, there was topical interest. NASA was the only game in any town.
Not so, today. To the extent people notice, crewed spaceflight is something billionaires do in their spare time, when they aren’t oppressing the masses. So long as Progressivism distracts and drains the public zeitgeist, space won’t be of interest to The People, save direct and tangible benefits.
Jeff Wright,
Don’t know about gushing, but I would certainly have a higher level of overall interest if there was a Starship in the picture. Actual gushing I will probably reserve for the first human lunar mission which is all-Starship from portal to portal. I think we could see that within 36 months. After that, they’ll be coming thick and fast.
Given the amount of time it has been in the development “oven,” Orion is still oddly underdone. The alleged “Orion” that flew on Experimental Flight Test 1 back in 2014 was barely a boilerplate. Eight years later, the Orion on Artemis 1 lacked life support and docking gear. The Artemis 2 Orion still lacks docking gear. We won’t see a reasonably complete Orion until Artemis 3 – notionally next year. It’s been sort of a reverse striptease – starting out pretty much naked and then getting dressed as the dance proceeds.
Blair Ivey,
The Apollo astronauts were certainly human and could see the lunar Farside, just not very well as it was almost entirely in darkness during their missions and has a lower average albedo than the lunar Nearside in the bargain. Not exactly like looking for black cats in a coal bin, but close enough. The Apollo LMs were all going to places on the lunar Nearside and in broad daylight. The “Dark Side of the Moon” is, of course, not always dark, but it was for the Apollo missions.
For Artemis 2, there is supposed to be sunlight on about 1/5 of the lunar Farside during their pass by. So the four Artemisians are not the first humans to see the lunar Farside, but they are the first to see any significant part of it in daylight conditions. Too bad they are also a lot farther away from the surface than the Apollo astronauts were. Really good close-up human eyeball views of most of the lunar Farside still await future missions.
Nate P,
You are likely correct that no significant new wave of lunar enthusiasm among the general public is in the offing. That’s fine. The general public will not be footing most of the bill, just for the NASA stuff. It’s the private sector lunar efforts that will be what gets the cost of a lunar tour down to something the fairly well-to-do can afford on an occasional basis – and then cheaper yet. I won’t ever get to the Moon, but my offspring might.
As with Europeans crossing the Atlantic to seek fortunes in the New World, pioneering in space is never going to be a mass movement – at least compared to the size of the Earthside source populations. The people who are interested will go. As Mark Steyn says, “The future will belong to those who show up for it.”
Saville,
Your remarks anent the Chinese make me think maybe just a wee bit more favorably of Artemis 2. If it serves, in even a small way, to make the PRC more likely to hurry faster than it ought, and trip over its own shoelaces in the process, then it will have served the US and the rest of humankind well.
Dick Eagleson: Fair enough.
“Bill Anders would later describe how he first became aware of the moon, as the spacecraft moved into the shadowed region where neither sunlight nor reflected light from Earth was visible — what the astronauts called the “double umbra.” As Anders recalled, “Suddenly, we saw millions of stars, more than you could see in a planetarium, to the point where it confused the constellations. So that was rather spectacular. And I remember looking at them because I was interested in astronomy, and then I looked kind of over my left shoulder and suddenly, the stars stopped. And there was this big black void, black hole. And that was the moon! That was the moon shielding the stars and yet not illuminated. It was as black as I’ve ever seen black. That was the only time in the flight the hair kind of came up on the back of my neck a little bit.””
https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/americanexperience/features/moon-looking-moon-apollo-8/
Blue Moon was to already have flown by now—likely on a similar trajectory that currently bores Mr. Z
Don’t confuse some of my smack talk for wishing Starship never existed….had Blue Moon worked I certainly would not have been bored. Some of my ire is because it hasn’t been what was promised—some of my acidity intended to light a fire under Elon.
I think it was Pat Dye who once said a team wasn’t “man enough” to beat ‘Bama….and it had the intended effect.
We are nearing half-time…if Boca doesn’t want us to run up the score…you don’t do it via a Hail Mary–that’s Gosling’s. You don’t do it by sabotaging the other team’s bus.
I want workmanlike victories. Falcon/Dragon? That’s Sun Belt JuCo nonsense.
This is SEC.
We play for keeps.
Jeff Wright,
You’re as likely to motivate Musk as you are to see the SLS become the dominant rocket for Artemis, which is to say, not at all. Sabotaging the other team’s bus? The SLS program’s problems are all self-inflicted. Playing for keeps? Then SpaceX has already won: Starship will keep going, and the SLS is increasingly sidelined. JuCo nonsense, that’s a real hoot. Yes, the rocket that’s dramatically lowered launch costs, brought international payloads back to US rockets, launched more people to space than any other existing vehicle, is the only reusable vehicle operating (yes, operating is the key word here, Starship is still in development), and launched by far the largest satellite network, is clearly something anyone could have done. Are you trying to make yourself look this silly on purpose?
Some general comments across the board:
1) The NASA PAO team totally sucks. I mean they can’t put together a cogent piece of video. From botched launch camera shots to showing old video on their “Live” YT channel to an AROW display that conks out every 2 minutes – which you then have to start all over at the beginning and click through page after page to get back to the display.
2) Both the astros and the ground sound like amateurs. More “can you tell me where such and such is stored” questions and just the general tone of the talk is extremely unprofessional in my opinion. YMMV. Maybe this is the wave of the future…modern times. I don’t know, but I can tell you that I don’t like it.
3) It seems like toilet conversation is rife….even during the flyby – while they were describing what they see on the moon – NASA calls up and reminds them that they cannot, presently, use the toilet.
4) As others have said, now all we have to do is hope the heat shield plan works out and the 4 astros get back alive.
I think it would be cool if Musk sent another Tesla up, but around the moon using Falcon Heavy. I think he could make it without much change to the Heavy. Yes, a loop around the moon and then an E- jection burn into space.
I’ll take poor video of a great rocket over great video of a poor rocket
Right now, we have great private video over a great NASA rocket.
That is the best public private partnership.
If you recall the “AMT high” call-out….that is because SLS was over-performing….right behind augmented Atlas V in clearing the tower.
The capsule responded to pilot input better than the simulator.
My guys KNOW what they are doing.
I have doubts about Musk.
Jeff Wright,
They’re so good at it that it only took them over a decade using existing engines to build a rocket that still had plenty of issues both times on the launch pad, while costing more per launch and carrying less cargo than Saturn V fifty years ago. Few people outside of MSFC really want the rocket, which is why nobody is ponying up the money to buy a launch, and nobody building payloads has any interest in it. They’re building for F9, New Glenn, and Starship.
Nate P pondered: “I wonder how much sustained interest there will be. Artemis I saw many predictions that it would lead to a groundswell of support for NASA and the SLS, and neither happened. I doubt there will be ongoing interest and support until we’re actively building a base and people are operating there, and even then, it will be something that most people outside the space community will only think of obliquely.”
In the 1960s, there were many questions as to how many poor people could have been supported by the money spent going to the Moon. This seemed like a legitimate question, because it was taxpayer money being spent, and welfare was a fairly new concept, pretending to be humane but instead keeping people poor.
These days, a privately funded commercial lunar base would provide benefits that make money for the commercial companies doing their business on the Moon. A government moon-base would still be as useless as the Apollo project turned out to be. Apollo benefitted the government with boatloads of prestige, but it did not much benefit the rest of us. All We the People got were some photographs and souvenir rocks. We can expect similar results from a modern government owned and run moon-base.
___________
Dick Eagleson wrote: “We won’t see a reasonably complete Orion until Artemis 3 – notionally next year. It’s been sort of a reverse striptease – starting out pretty much naked and then getting dressed as the dance proceeds.”
Although Starship has had eleven development integrated test flights in the ten years that it has been in development, Orion has now flown only three development flights in the twenty years that it has been in development. The next Orion flight will be the verification flight for the heat shield and docking gear. And the corrected toilet.
“The Apollo LMs were all going to places on the lunar Nearside and in broad daylight. The “Dark Side of the Moon” is, of course, not always dark, but it was for the Apollo missions.”
Apollo LMs landed in the lunar morning, local lunar time, so quite a bit of the Moon’s far side (dark side, for those not in the know) was lit up. If you looked at the Moon Monday night, you saw that much of the near side was lit up, meaning that much of the far side was dark. However, portions of the Moon that the Artemis II astronauts saw are lit now but were not lit when Apollo’s landing missions went there. Apollo 8 and Apollo 10 may have been there when those regions were well lit — I am not inclined to check, because then I could end up taking away the glory of the current Artemis crew. After all, they deserve to have some important first to put under their belts and on their résumés. They are braving the risks of a defective heat shield, and there are still three days of opportunities for the life support to fail.
____________
Jeff Wright wrote: “I’ll take poor video of a great rocket over great video of a poor rocket”
But what we got is poor video of a poor rocket, incapable of achieving any of the goals set for it. Artemis II is not a goal but a waypoint (task) toward the goal. Even NASA is advertising it as such. As Nate P noted, no one outside of NASA’s manned space program wants to use it, making it already obsolete.
“My guys KNOW what they are doing.”
Yes, they do. They have sent four astronauts on a mission that they KNOW is risky, with an untested life support and a faulty heat shield. In addition, the toilet is broken. Jeff’s guys don’t fly missions the way I want to fly.
I want to know about this Wallowitz waste disposal system. The toilet of death.
This is a piece of kit that has been around for 40 years working fine in space. Why is this new one all filled with problems.
The water disposal port is freezing up. This was happening the first day.
The heating coil inside the system is giving off a burning smell.
The fan stopped working.
Didn’t they test the new space crapper long before lift off?
And please don’t give me the excuse that they could always use the back up “bag it” solution. If they planned on the back up solution then they could have just made that the primary solution and skipped the loo altogether and saved a billion dollars..
Maybe they should have just sent up Plumbers, electricians, programmers and other tradesmen instead of over trained space monkeys.