Um, I hate to be that person. But as long as the periapsis doesn’t drop below the surface, the body is still orbiting. Technically speaking, even if that event occurs i.e. it is on a descent trajectory, then it becomes a suborbital flight. In this case, that didn’t happen, according to the mission report, the spacecraft;
> The lowest measured point in the trajectory was 47 400 feet from the lunar surface. Following one revolution in the phasing orbit, about 8 by 194 miles, the lunar module was staged, and the ascent engine was used to perform an insertion maneuver at about 103 hourshttps://www.hq.nasa.gov/alsj/a410/A10_MissionReport.pdf
It never entered a suborbital trajectory. Consequently, it was orbiting the moon and the article is accurate.
An orbit is not defined by height for bodies with negligible atmospheres, it’s defined by velocity and (as a side effect) the apogee and perigee of the trajectory. As long the trajectory never hits the surface, it can be 1/4 of an inch above the highest surface feature under the trajectory and still be an orbit.
Huh, I thought that they were suborbital and decided to boost back up. If they completed a full ellipse then that's a pretty valid orbit, albeit I wouldn't call it one "at the height of an airplane" without qualification.
It was not the STS orbiter commonly referred to as "the space shuttle" but it most certainly was a shuttle in the sense of taking one there and back again.
I mean, sure: it was part of the Apollo spacecraft until it detached. But it didn't orbit that low from the surface of the moon, unless you want to call the descent/ascent stage part of an "orbit".
Minor correction: the lander was not "orbiting" the moon, the command module was.