Artemis I
Artemis I — the uncrewed maiden flight of NASA's SLS rocket and Orion spacecraft (November-December 2022), which flew a distant retrograde orbit around the Moon and set a distance record for a human-rated spacecraft.
Key facts
Mission & specifications
Mission
- Operator
- NASA
- Launched
- November 16, 2022
- Status
- Completed
Trajectory
- Current speed
- 1.41 km/s
- Distance from the Sun
- 1.01 AU
- Distance from Earth
- 2,661,332 km
- Distance from Venus
- 0.636 AU
Mission
Artemis I was the first flight of the rockets and spacecraft meant to return humans to the Moon — an uncrewed shakedown of the most powerful rocket NASA had ever flown. After years of delays, the giant Space Launch System (SLS) lifted off from Kennedy Space Center on 16 November 2022, lighting up the night sky as it sent an uncrewed Orion capsule toward the Moon. The point of flying without a crew was to test everything that would have to work perfectly before people climbed aboard. Over 25 days Orion travelled to the Moon, swung close above its surface, and entered a wide 'distant retrograde orbit', looping far beyond the Moon and reaching about 432,000 kilometres from Earth — farther than any spacecraft built to carry humans had ever gone, breaking the record set by Apollo 13. From that distance Orion turned its cameras back to photograph a tiny crescent Earth beyond the Moon, images that recalled the Apollo era. The most critical test came at the very end. Returning from the Moon, Orion hit the atmosphere at nearly 40,000 kilometres per hour — far faster than a return from low Earth orbit — and its heat shield had to survive temperatures around 2,800 degrees Celsius. On 11 December 2022 the capsule splashed down safely in the Pacific, its shield having done its job (though later inspection found it had eroded more unevenly than expected, a problem engineers spent the following years understanding). Artemis I proved that SLS and Orion could fly, reach the Moon and bring a crew safely home — clearing the way for astronauts on the next flight.
- 2022SLS maiden launchLaunch
The most powerful rocket NASA has flown sends an uncrewed Orion toward the Moon.
- 2022A new distance recordMilestone
Orion reaches ~432,000 km from Earth in distant retrograde lunar orbit, beating Apollo 13's record.
- 2022Splashdown and heat-shield testMission end
Orion re-enters at ~40,000 km/h and splashes down in the Pacific, its heat shield surviving the trial.
Images
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