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Hello everyone. It’s the first post of Full Throttle on Substack.

The newsletter may look a little different, but the content is the same.

What a week for NASA. Artemis 1 made its first flyby of the Moon. The Orion capsule flew over Tranquility Base where Apollo 11 landed. It was dark, so no images. There is a sighting coming up when the capsule comes by the Moon again.

Artemis 1 is testing out a Distant Retrograde Orbit. This orbit is about 40,000 miles away from the Moon. The reason is that a Distant Retrograde Orbit requires less fuel to maintain a stable orbit. This is a good place for the mini-space station known as Gateway. A place to live before heading back to the Moon.

The mobile launcher for Artemis 1 did sustain some damage during launch. NASA officials say that was not surprising and pronounced that the mobile launcher did its job. Images show parts, including some elevator doors, were melted.

NASA is quite pleased with how the mission is going. The big test is coming up. That is reentry at a speed and temperatures never seen for a human rated spacecraft.

NASA will be talking about the Distant Retrograde Orbit and how the mission is going tomorrow.

That is the first post here on Substack. Many more to come.

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