Orion still has work to do, of course. Its mission will not be complete until the spacecraft maneuvers back around the Moon, returns to Earth, survives reentry into the atmosphere, splashes down into the ocean, and is recovered off the coast near San Diego. That is scheduled to occur on December 11.
However, the mission is going so well that NASA has decided to add objectives, such as firing various thrusters for longer than intended to verify their performance. This work will further increase NASA’s confidence in the Orion capsule and the propulsive service module provided by the European Space Agency.
Overall, 31 of the Artemis I mission’s 124 baseline objectives are complete, Sarafin said. Many of these pertain to the performance of the launch vehicle. Of the remaining objectives, one half is in progress, and the other half has yet to be started. Most of these remaining objectives are related to landing back on Earth, such as the parachute deployment system.
Understandably, NASA’s engineers are thrilled by the performance of Artemis I so far. It was a long, bumpy, and costly development path to reach this mission with the Space Launch System rocket and Orion spacecraft. But once the vehicles began flying, their performance met every expectation and hope of the space agency, increasing confidence in the future of the Artemis program to explore the Moon.