Overview
- Orion, which fired its main engine Thursday at 7:49 p.m. ET for about six minutes, is now on a precise free-return path toward the Moon.
- NASA said the burn used roughly 1,000 pounds of propellant and produced up to about 6,000 pounds of thrust to push the spacecraft out of Earth’s orbit.
- A lunar flyby is planned for Monday, April 6, on a free-return path that uses the Moon’s gravity to swing Orion home and is expected to carry the crew farther from Earth than any humans before.
- The crew reported minor quirks, including a toilet fault light that Christina Koch fixed, while mission control noted otherwise normal life-support and navigation performance.
- The 10-day flight test carries Reid Wiseman, Victor Glover, Christina Koch, and Canada’s Jeremy Hansen to gather data for life support, navigation, communications, and reentry ahead of a planned Pacific splashdown on April 10.