Mission Begins Departure from Lunar Orbit

NASA will begin coverage of the Orion spacecraft performing the first of two maneuvers to exit lunar orbit, called the distant retrograde orbit departure burn, on Dec. 1 at 4:30 p.m. EST (21:30 UTC). The burn is scheduled to occur at 4:53 p.m. EST (21:53 UTC).

Orion launched aboard the Space Launch System (SLS) rocket at 1:47 a.m. EST (06:47 UTC) on Nov. 16 from historic Launch Complex 39B at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center. Orion entered a distant retrograde orbit on at 4:52 p.m. EST (21:52 UTC) on Nov. 25, where the spacecraft has been testing systems in a deep space environment.

The Artemis I mission is the first integrated test of NASA’s deep space exploration systems: the Orion spacecraft, the SLS rocket, and Kennedy Space Center ground systems.