Artemis I – Flight Day Four: Testing WiFi Signals, Radiator System, GO for Outbound Powered Flyby
Author Leah Cheshier
Posted on November 19, 2022 6:55 pm
On Saturday, Nov. 19, the Mission Management Team polled “go” for Orion’s outbound powered flyby past the Moon. NASA will cover the flyby live on NASA TV, the agency’s website <https://www.nasa.gov/nasalive/>, and the NASA app starting at 7:15 a.m. EST Monday, Nov. 21. The burn is planned for 7:44 a.m. Orion will lose communication with Earth as it passes behind the Moon from 7:25 a.m. through 7:59 a.m., making its closest approach of approximately 80 miles from the surface at 7:57 a.m.
During flight day four, flight controllers moved each solar array to a different position to test the strength of the WiFi signal with the arrays in different configurations. The Integrated Communications Officer, or INCO, tested the WiFi transfer rate between the camera on the tip of the solar array panels and the camera controller. The goal was to determine the best position to most efficiently transfer imagery files. Teams learned that having multiple cameras on at once can impact the WiFi data rate, and therefore, future solar array wing file transfer activities will be accomplished from one solar array wing at a time to optimize transfer time.