On the third day after launch from Florida to the Moon, the Orion spacecraft is “exceeding performance expectations,” NASA officials said Friday.

The spacecraft is expected to take astronauts to the Moon in the coming years – the first to set foot on its surface since the last Apollo mission in 1972.

This first test flight with no crew on board is intended to ensure that the vehicle is safe.

“Today we met to review the performance of the Orion spacecraft… it is exceeding performance expectations,” said Mike Sarafin, director of the Artemis-1 mission.

The spacecraft’s four four-foot-long solar panels were deployed correctly and are delivering more power than expected, said Jim Geffre, Orion manager at Johnson Space Center in Houston.

The spaceship is controlled from this control center in Texas.

Already some 200,000 miles (320,000 kilometers) from Earth, Orion is preparing to use its thrusters to perform the first of four main thrusts planned during the mission.

The maneuver, which will take place early Monday morning, will bring the spacecraft within 130 kilometers of the lunar surface to take advantage of the moon’s gravitational pull.

Since this will take place on the far side of the moon, NASA is expected to lose contact with the spacecraft for about 35 minutes.

“We will fly over some of the Apollo landing sites,” Flight Director Jeff Radigan said, although they will be in darkness. Images of the flyover are released by NASA.

Four days later, a second engine boost will propel Orion into a distant orbit around the moon.

The ship will fly up to 40,000 miles beyond the moon, a record for a habitable capsule.

It will then make the journey back to Earth, with a landing in the Pacific Ocean scheduled for December 11, after just over 25 days of flight.

The success of this mission will determine the future of the Artemis 2 mission, which will take astronauts around the moon without landing, and then Artemis 3, which will eventually mark the return of humans to the lunar surface.

These missions are scheduled to take place in 2024 and 2025, respectively.

Sarafin also said Friday that 10 scientific microsatellites were deployed when the rocket lifted off, but that half of them had technical or communications problems.

However, these experiments, conducted separately by independent teams, will not affect the main mission.