Out of contact on the far side of the moon, NASA's unpiloted Orion crew capsule carried out a critical rocket firing and lunar flyby Monday, flinging the craft toward a distant orbit for tests intended to pave the way to a piloted flight in 2024. NASA managers met Saturday, four days after Orion's sky-lighting launch, and gave flight controllers a "go" to proceed with Orion's "outbound powered flyby" maneuver, a two-and-a-half-minute firing of the spacecraft's main engine starting at 7:44 a.m. EST Monday. Dramatic live video from cameras mounted on the spacecraft showed Earth slowly approaching the limb of the moon and then disappearing as Orion passed out of contact behind the moon at 7:25 a.m. Nineteen minutes later, still out of contact, Orion executed the engine firing on its own as planned. A few minutes after that, the spacecraft made its closest approach to the moon at an altitude of about 81 miles, moving back into contact with flight controllers at 7:59 a.m. A striking image f
