NASA will allow the Orion capsule to begin its journey back to Earth tonight. The US space agency will start the spacecraft’s engines at 10:53 pm, so that Orion will exit its lunar orbit and begin its path towards the blue planet.

Before that happens, NASA in their own words Some other tests with six thrusters were conducted jointly with the European Space Agency (ESA). The thrusters were able to burn for 95 seconds instead of the usual 17 seconds or less. Through these tests, NASA will have new information about the properties of the thrusters.

There will also be some tests during the return trip to Earth. For example, NASA wants to know how opening and closing a particular valve affects some parts of the spacecraft and whether the spacecraft can hover on a closer free trajectory.

NASA’s Orion capsule was launched on Wednesday, November 16, after a long delay in the SLS rocket, as part of the Artemis I mission. The capsule should land safely in the Pacific Ocean on December 11, after a mission that lasted more than 25 days. This space mission aims to test various aspects of Orion in deep space before using the capsule to carry astronauts to the Moon for the first time in decades. That should happen with the Artemis III mission, scheduled for 2025. End of November NASA announced Orion has entered orbit around the moon. a few days later became known The capsule has traveled more than 432,210 kilometers in space since its launch. According to NASA, this is the largest distance ever reached by a spacecraft designed to carry people.

Modernization, 3:40 PM: Missing task end date information. This information has been added to the article.