Orion completes short 15-second burn to refine its return-to-Earth
The Earth as seen from Orion just before the capsule swung behind
the Moon yesterday. Click for this and other Artemis-2 lunar images.
The Orion capsule today completed a 15-second engine burn in order to fine-tune its return path for splashdown in the Pacific Ocean on April 10th.
At 8:03 p.m. EDT, the Orion spacecraft, named Integrity, ignited its thrusters for 15 seconds, producing a change in velocity of 1.6 feet-per-second and guiding the Artemis II crew toward Earth. NASA astronaut Christina Koch and CSA (Canadian Space Agency) astronaut Jeremy Hansen reviewed procedures and monitored the spacecraft’s configuration and navigation data.
During today’s mission status briefing, NASA officials shared the first images received from the crew during the lunar flyby and confirmed that the USS John P. Murtha has left port and is headed to the midway point toward the recovery site in the Pacific Ocean.
This was Orion’s second small engine burn since it left Earth orbit on April 2, 2026. Unlike the Apollo missions to the Moon in the 1960s-1970s, which involved entering and leaving lunar orbit and doing complex maneuvers while there, the Artemis-2 mission around the Moon has largely been a passive one. The capsule was sent on this course at the start, and has been coasting since. Today’s burn was merely a small adjustment, not a major burn.
The re-entry on April 10, 2026 remains the key moment of the flight, as it has always been. Will that questionable heat shield do as NASA’s engineers predict and work to protect the four astronauts during re-entry? Or will it do things unexpected, because those engineers really don’t understand the engineering issues involved?
I am hopeful and optimistic. I also know that even if everything turns out fine, this flight will simply be a demonstration that NASA has learned nothing from the Challenger and Columbia accidents, and is still willing to risk human lives in order to win some political kudos and get some good PR. And for that reason I am not confident of the agency’s ability to truly do what it says, safely and competently.
One more note: Though the images being sent back are quite beautiful, they are hardly ground-breaking. Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter has mapped the entire surface of the Moon at much great resolution, far better than anything seen on this mission. NASA might claim the astronauts are doing science, but most of it is minor and not very significant. When you get down to it, this is simply a very expensive tourist trip for four government employees, paid for at an ungodly cost by the American taxpayer.
