Artemis I mission overview - three dimensional view

Animation showing the Artemis I misison in a three-dimensional view.

Orion and the European Service Module were launched by NASA's mega Moon rocket SLS on 16 November 2022, this animation shows their voyage to the Moon and back.

During the initial coast to the Moon Orion will be on a very elliptical orbit around Earth. As the spacecraft nears the apogee of the orbit (the farthest point from Earth) it will slow down, because Earth’s gravity is pulling the spacecraft back to Earth.

On the sixth day of flight, Orion flies close to the Moon and the European Service Module fired the main engine for a large boost that, pushes Orion faster and away from the Moon.

On the tenth day of flight the European Service Module fired its engines to put Orion in a lunar orbit by braking it. This so-called distant retrograde orbit insertion puts the spacecraft in a 12-day eliptical orbit around the Moon.

Only halfway through the lunar orbit, on flight day 16, the European Service Module will initiate the “distant retrograde orbit departure”, kicking off a slingshot sequence of orbital mechanics to use the Moon’s gravitational pull again and set Orion on a trip back to our planet.

When Orion’s orbit takes it closer to the lunar surface, the European Service Module will fire its main engine for the last time on the Artemis I mission – at around 800 km from the lunar surface.

Just 30 minutes before splashdown the European Service Module that provides thrust, air, water and electricity to the Orion spacecraft separate – the European Service Module does not survive the return to Earth but burns up harmlessly in our atmosphere, disintegrating brightly under the intense friction caused from traveling in our atmosphere at speeds faster than any spacecraft returned to land on Earth ever travelled before.