Artemis 1, the first flight of the Artemis program, launched early Wednesday morning (November 16). A Space Launch System rocket, on its first mission, successfully sent an uncrewed Orion spacecraft to the moon. Although the launch is over, you can still follow along with the nearly month-long mission in real time at this NASA website (opens in a new tab). And, if you want, you can download the track data to build your own apps, the service said. The main website shows an animation of Orion in space along with the time the mission has passed, the capsule’s speed and its distance from Earth and the Moon. You can change the view of the Orion spacecraft by rotating the camera or moving between four solar array wing cameras or switching between views of the mission’s path so far. You can also look at the spaceship up close. In photos: Amazing views of NASA’s Artemis 1 rocket debut “The ephemeris data can be used to track Orion with your own spaceflight software application or telescope. It can also be used to create a physics model, animation, visualization, tracking application, or other potential projects,” said the author of NASA’s Erika Peters in a blog. post (opens in new tab) on Tumblr. Available state vectors, or data describing Orion’s position and movements in space, could also be used for tracking applications and data visualizations, NASA said in a separate post (opens in new tab) about the project. The data visible online is the same as that generated by a team in NASA’s mission control at the Johnson Space Center in Houston. The team, called flight dynamic operations (FDO), is responsible for “monitoring where the spacecraft is and where it’s going to be,” Peters said. FDO receives information from Orion’s tracking on the Deep Space Network, which is a trio of huge satellite dishes on Earth that enable communication with NASA missions throughout the solar system. Between the tracking information received and the models FDO creates, the team aims to provide precision on Orion’s trajectory to feed Artemis flight controllers. “An accurate orbit is essential to achieving mission objectives, maintaining communications links, illumination, orbit adjustment and more,” Peters added. Elizabeth Howell is the co-author of Why Am I Taller (opens in new tab)? (ECW Press, 2022; with Canadian astronaut Dave Williams), a book on space medicine. Follow her on Twitter @howellspace (opens in new tab). Follow us on Twitter @Spacedotcom (opens in a new tab) or Facebook (opens in a new tab).
