Continue the conquest of space with the Artemis 1 mission. Today the Orion capsule greeted the Moon in the close passage that brought it to about 130 kilometers from its surface : the confirmation came from NASA.

The spacecraft started its engines at 13.44 Italian time, when it was on the dark side of the Moon and 13 minutes later it reached the minimum distance from the surface of our satellite . Thanks to this maneuver, Orion has gained the necessary thrust to move away towards a more distant orbit . This will be called a distant retrograde orbit : retrograde because the capsule will move around the Moon in the opposite direction to that in which it moves around the Earth, distant because it is at a high altitude relative to the lunar surface. From that moment a week will begin of tests, the objective of which will be to verify the functionality of the vehicle systems in view of future missions with astronauts on board . Today's goal marks a new achievement of the Artemis 1 unmanned mission , launched on November 16 from Cape Canaveral base.

The new milestone officially inaugurates the beginning of the space adventure towards the return to the Moon, in view of future missions with astronauts on board.

As part of the space mission, ArgoMoon, the satellite of the Italian Space Agency , developed and managed by the Turin-based Argotec , was also sent into space together with the Orion spacecraft. Italian technology has not disappointed expectations, offering some images directly from space that portray the Moon and the Earth, taken respectively at a distance of about 278,500 and 125,000 km.

«Beautiful photos of the Earth and the Moon, our next home thanks to the Artemis program – underlines Giorgio Saccoccia , president of ASI -. They were taken by our cubesat ArgoMoon on its transfer journey after separation from the SLS, the new large American launcher, indispensable for bringing humanity back to the Moon. Italy is there ».

«Our satellite platform – explains David Avino , CEO of Argotec – has once again guaranteed excellent performance in extremely complex contexts. For the second time in just a few weeks we have delivered photos from deep space to history. The successes of this last month demonstrate the reliability and the advanced technology of our systems which, combined with the demonstrated capabilities of the team, lay the solid foundations for Argotec's ambitious growth plans».

(Unioneonline/vf)

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