NASA’S ORION CAPSULE has entered an orbit stretching tens of thousands of kilometres around the moon, as it nears the halfway mark of its test flight.

The capsule and its three test dummies entered lunar orbit more than a week after launching on the $4 billion Artemis programme demo that is meant to pave the way for astronauts.

It will remain in this broad but stable orbit for nearly a week, completing just half a lap before heading home.

As of yesterday’s engine firing, the capsule was just over 383,000 kilometres from Earth. It’s expected to reach a maximum distance of just over 434,000 kilometres in a few days.

That will set a new distance record for a capsule designed to carry people one day.

“It is a statistic, but it’s symbolic for what it represents,” Jim Geffre, an Orion manager, said in a Nasa interview earlier in the week.

“It’s about challenging ourselves to go farther, stay longer and push beyond the limits of what we’ve previously explored.”

Nasa considers this a dress rehearsal for the next moon flyby in 2024, with astronauts.

A lunar landing by astronauts could follow as soon as 2025. Astronauts last visited the moon 50 years ago during the Apollo 17 mission.

Earlier in the week, Mission Control in Houston lost contact with the capsule for nearly an hour.

At the time, controllers were adjusting the communication link between Orion and the Deep Space Network. Officials said the spacecraft remained healthy.