NASA officials said Friday that the Orion spacecraft “exceeded expectations” on its third day after sailing from Florida to the moon. The spacecraft will take astronauts to the moon for years to come and will be the first vehicle to set foot on its surface since the last Apollo mission in 1972. This first unmanned test flight is to make sure the vehicle is safe.

“We met today to test the performance of the Orion spacecraft … it exceeds expectations,” said Mike Sarafin, Artemis 1 mission manager.

Orion director of the Johnson Space Center in Houston, Jim Geffre, said the spacecraft’s four solar panels, about 13 feet (four meters) long, were placed correctly and provided more energy than expected. The spacecraft is piloted from the control center in Texas. Orion is currently about 200,000 miles (320,000 kilometers) from Earth and using its engines is preparing to perform the first of four major thrusts planned for the mission.

The maneuver, to be carried out early Monday morning, will bring the spacecraft within 130 kilometers of the lunar surface to take advantage of the moon’s gravity. NASA is expected to lose contact with the spacecraft for about 35 minutes, as it will take place on the far side of the moon.

“We’re going to go over some of the Apollo landing sites,” Flight Director Jeff Redigan said, but they’ll be in the dark. Images of the overpass will be published by NASA.

Four days later, a second thrust from the engines will carry Orion into a distant orbit around the moon. The vehicle will travel up to 40,000 miles beyond the Moon, a record habitable capsule. It will then begin its return journey to Earth, landing in the Pacific Ocean scheduled for December 11, after a little over 25 days of flight. The success of this mission will determine the future of the Artemis 2 mission, which will take the astronauts around the moon without landing, and then Artemis 3, which will mark the return of humans to the lunar surface.

These missions are planned for 2024 and 2025, respectively. Sarafin also said on Friday that 10 science microsatellites were deployed when the rocket took off, but half had technical or communication problems. However, these experiments performed separately by independent groups will not affect the main task. Source