Apollo Did It, Then Nobody. Now Orion's Crew Does It Again

Artemis II's most technically demanding objective is done. The crew completed the proximity operations demonstration on Wednesday, manually flying the Orion spacecraft named Integrity through roughly 70 minutes of close-range maneuvering using reaction control system thrusters, with the spent interim cryogenic propulsion stage as their target, NASA confirmed. The ICPS is the upper stage that helped shape Orion's Earth orbit before the European Service Module's main engine sends the crew toward the Moon, per ESA. They flew toward it, around it, and away from it, proving out the manual piloting capability that will eventually be needed to dock with Starship on Artemis III.

The demo is one of the few tests on this mission that required astronauts in the loop rather than ground control. Proximity operations at this scale, with a crewed spacecraft flying manually near another object in deep space, have not been performed since Apollo. Orion's flight software handled the relative navigation; the crew provided the inputs and corrections. What NASA got from this is data on how the spacecraft handles in the regime where autonomous systems hand off to human judgment, which is exactly the regime a lunar lander operates in.

The timing is worth noting. Earlier in the day, before the proximity ops demo, the crew reported a blinking fault light on the toilet, NASA said. Mission control worked the issue in parallel with other preparations. By the time proximity ops began, the toilet was restored to normal operations, per an update posted Thursday. The story generated social media noise because a spacecraft named Integrity, carrying four astronauts to the Moon, briefly had a broken bathroom. The fix was routine. The symbolism was not lost on anyone watching.

Pilot Victor Glover described the experience in real time: "It does seem to move a little bit more, but it is very responsive on the corrections, and I was able to stop it on the center." Earlier he said "Overall, guys, this flies very nicely. Very precise." The European Service Module carries 24 RCS thrusters in six pods and provides all propulsion and power for the crew module. After the automated backflip and handoff at roughly 300 feet, Glover flew manually to within 15 meters (50 feet) of the spent stage, held centerline, and departed under manual control.

After the proximity ops demo concluded, Orion executed an automated departure burn to back away from the ICPS. The upper stage then performed its own disposal burn, targeting re-entry over a remote region of the Pacific Ocean. The stage is gone. Orion is on its way to the Moon.

The next milestone is the apogee raise burn, further elongating the orbit ahead of the translunar injection burn that sends the crew toward the lunar flyby. The crew is roughly 19 hours into a 10-day mission that launched April 1 at 6:35 p.m. EDT from Kennedy Space Center.

Four CubeSats — ATENEA, Space Weather CubeSat-1, TACHELES, and K-Rad Cube — launched aboard the Orion stage adapter and remain undeployed until after adapter separation. The payloads, from Argentina, Saudi Arabia, Germany, and South Korea, are independent experiments and do not affect the crew's flight profile.

This was also a test of something harder to quantify: whether the heat shield fixes from Artemis I held under actual flight conditions. The heat shield on the test flight performed differently than expected, and NASA redesigned the block geometry before this flight. The real answer will come at re-entry, still days away.

The cost architecture is worth sitting with. The NASA Office of Inspector General estimated SLS at $4.1 billion per launch as of 2021. The total Artemis programme stands at approximately $93 billion through 2025, with more than $55 billion spent on SLS, Orion, and Exploration Ground Systems before a single crewed flight. By contrast, SpaceX's Starship is estimated at $90 million per launch. The proximity ops demo is done. Re-entry is not.