Engineers hope to characterize the alignment between the star trackers and the Orion inertial measurement units by exposing different areas of the spacecraft to the Sun and activating the star trackers in different thermal states. Both of these are part of the guidance, navigation, and control system. Star trackers are navigation tools that measure the positions of stars to help the spacecraft determine its orientation. The inertial measurement units contain three devices, called gyros, used to measure spacecraft body rotation rates, and three accelerometers used to measure spacecraft accelerations. Together, the star tracker and inertial measurement unit data are used by Orion’s vehicle management computers to compute spacecraft position, velocity, and attitude. The measurements will help engineers understand how thermal states affect the accuracy of the navigation state, which ultimately affects the amount of propellant needed for spacecraft maneuvers. Read more about Orion’s guidance, navigation, and control system in the Artemis I reference guide. Engineers began a development flight test objective today that changed the minimum jet firing time for the reaction control thrusters over a period of 24 hours. This test objective is designed to exercise the reaction control system jets in a different configuration to model how thruster jets will be used for the crewed Artemis II mission. Monday, November 28, Orion will reach its farthest distance from Earth when it is nearly 270,000 miles (435,000 km) from our home planet. As of 4:30 p.m. CST, Orion was over 264,000 miles (425,000 km) from Earth and 45,600 miles (73,400 km) from the Moon, cruising at 1,750 miles (2,800 km) per hour. To follow the mission real-time, you can track Orion during its mission around the Moon and back, and check the NASA TV schedule for updates on the next televised events.
