At approximately 9:42 p.m. Eastern on Wednesday, the Orion spacecraft Integrity fired its Orbital Maneuvering System engine for 43 seconds, completing the perigee raise burn that refined its orbit and set the stage for the trans-lunar injection later in the mission timeline. [1] NASA's mission blog confirmed the burn performed nominally. Telemetry showed the spacecraft's velocity change matched predictions within 0.2 percent. The four-person crew -- Reid Wiseman, Victor Glover, Christina Koch, and Jeremy Hansen -- reported all systems green.

The perigee raise was a technical necessity, not a spectacle. After Tuesday's launch on the Space Launch System rocket, Orion entered a highly elliptical orbit around Earth, with an apogee of approximately 70,385 kilometers and a perigee that dipped close enough to the upper atmosphere to require adjustment. [2] The 43-second burn lifted the perigee, ensuring the spacecraft's subsequent passes would not encounter atmospheric drag that could degrade the orbit before the critical trans-lunar injection burn.

Space.com reported that during the orbit, the crew briefly took manual control of the spacecraft's attitude -- the first time humans have hand-flown an Orion capsule in space. [3] The manual flying segment, lasting roughly ten minutes, tested the hand controllers and the crew's ability to override the automated flight systems. Commander Wiseman described the handling as "responsive" in a brief communication with Mission Control in Houston. The manual test was scheduled but carried symbolic weight: Artemis II is the first crewed mission beyond low Earth orbit since Apollo 17 in December 1972.

The next major milestone is the trans-lunar injection burn, which will send Integrity on a free-return trajectory around the Moon. NASA has not publicly confirmed the exact timing, but mission planning documents and orbital mechanics calculations place it on Thursday evening. [2] The burn, lasting approximately six minutes, will accelerate the spacecraft to roughly 24,500 miles per hour -- escape velocity from Earth's gravitational influence and the fastest any human has traveled since the Apollo program.

The lunar flyby itself is projected for approximately April 6, when Orion will pass within 4,112 miles of the Moon's far side before the Moon's gravity slings it back toward Earth. [2] As this paper noted in its April 2 edition, the flyby date coincides with the deadline Trump set for Iran during his prime-time address -- a coincidence that the mission's crew will almost certainly not acknowledge and that the public will almost certainly notice.

The European Service Module, built by Airbus for the European Space Agency, continues to perform within specifications. The module provides propulsion, power, and thermal control for the Orion capsule. Its main engine, adapted from the Automated Transfer Vehicle that serviced the International Space Station, is the hardware that will execute the trans-lunar injection burn. European engineering will send American astronauts to the Moon. The partnership is functional even as the transatlantic alliance frays over a war 250,000 miles below.

-- Kenji Nakamura, Houston