NASA says Artemis I Mission is proceeding as per plan

The Orion spacecraft, which is at the core of NASA’s historic Artemis I mission, reached its farthest distance from Earth. It shattered the earlier record for the maximum distance a spacecraft designed to carry humans has ever traveled. NASA confirmed that the Orion capsule had reached about 270,000 miles from Earth. This is the midpoint of its uncrewed mission around the moon. This distance is more than 40,000 miles beyond the far side of the moon. Apollo 13 mission in 1970 holds the previous record for the farthest a human-rated spacecraft has traveled. That mission had humans on board and it had stretched out to 248,655 miles from our home planet. The goal of the present Artemis I mission is to test the Orion capsule to its limits. The objective is to ensure that the vehicle is ready to host humans. The trial run is part of NASA’s broader Artemis program, which aims to return astronauts to the lunar surface for the first time since the 1970s. In a program of this nature, there could be problems and these have not posed any problems. Orion Program Manager Howard Hu said the spacecraft’s performance has been “outstanding.” In fact, the spacecraft is outperforming expectations in some respects. An example is producing about 20 percent more power than needed. NASA’s Orion spacecraft reaches record-breaking distance from Earth on Artemis I mission. The satisfactory progress of work impressed NASA. It plans to add seven additional mission objectives. These will gather additional data about the spacecraft’s capabilities and performance.

The spacecraft will swoop back toward the moon before firing its engines exit its current trajectory and head back toward Earth. The Orion capsule will splash down in the Pacific Ocean off the coast of California on December 11. Experts will keep a watch on the behavior of the heat shield. After landing, Orion must safely deploy parachutes to ensure a gentle ocean splashdown. A NASA recovery ship will be ready to haul the Orion capsule to safety. The success of Artemis I mission will mean NASA will proceed to choose a crew to fly on the Artemis II mission. This could take off as soon as 2024. Its mission would be to fly around the moon but not land on its surface. That will be mission of Artemis III in 2025. It will be unique because it will include the first woman and the first person of color to achieve such a milestone.

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NASA’s Orion unmanned spacecraft completes historic test flight

Orion, the unmanned spacecraft of NASA, successfully completed its test flight labeled as Exploration Flight Test-1 (EFT-1) and returned back to Earth – this is seen as the first tentative step towards mission Mars.
Orion splashed down in the Pacific Ocean 275 miles west of Baja California and the splashdown, which was streamed live from a NASA drone – naturally, it sparked scenes of celebration at the space agency’s Mission Control in Houston.
Orion had successfully taken off from Cape Canaveral, Fla., on Friday and was carried into space by a Delta IV Heavy Rocket. NASA has lauded the mission as a "textbook" maiden flight. The $370 million test flight was managed by Lockheed Martin and the Delta IV Heavy Rocket was built by United Launch Alliance.
Incidentally, Orion’s journey was a record of sorts the 4 hour and 24 minute because during the orbital mission Orion went deeper into space than any spacecraft built for humans has traveled in more than 40 years. It orbited the Earth twice, and, at one point, hit a maximum altitude of 3,604 miles.
During re-entry, it reached a speed of around 20,000 mph and generated temperatures around 4,000 degrees on the heat shield of the spacecraft.
In the opinion of Chris Carberry, executive director of Explore Mars, a non-profit organization that aims to advance the goal of sending humans to Mars within the next two decades, the Orion test starts us on the path toward sending humans beyond Low Earth Orbit.
He also said that NASA plans to start going to intermediate destinations in the early 2020s, including the Asteroid Redirect mission – and, if that or any other similar mission is to be achieved, there is a need to start testing hardware - as with EFT-1.