Orion Spacecraft Splashes Down In Pacific Ocean On Completing Moon Mission

NASA’s Orion spacecraft has splashed down in Pacific Ocean after completing its historic 26-day mission to the Moon.

The unmanned 322-foot-tall stack, consisting of the Space Launch System rocket and Orion spacecraft, made a soft landing over the waters west of Baja California on Sunday.

Recovery teams are working to secure Orion for the journey home, NASA said. The U.S. space agency leads the interagency landing and recovery team on the USS Portland, which consists of personnel and assets from the U.S. Department of Defense, including Navy amphibious specialists, Space Force weather specialists, and Air Force specialists, as well as engineers and technicians from NASA Kennedy, the agency’s Johnson Space Center in Houston, and Lockheed Martin Space Operations.

Orion exited the lunar sphere of influence after a record-breaking mission, traveling more than 1.4 million miles on a path around the Moon and returning safely to Earth, completing the Artemis I flight test.

After lifting off NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida on November 16, NASA tested Orion in the harsh environment of deep space before flying astronauts on Artemis II.

“The splashdown of the Orion spacecraft – which occurred 50 years to the day of the Apollo 17 Moon landing – is the crowning achievement of Artemis I. From the launch of the world’s most powerful rocket to the exceptional journey around the Moon and back to Earth, this flight test is a major step forward in the Artemis Generation of lunar exploration,” said NASA Administrator Bill Nelson.

During the mission, Orion performed two lunar flybys, coming within 80 miles of the lunar surface. At its farthest distance during the mission, Orion traveled nearly 270,000 miles from our home planet, more than 1,000 times farther than where the International Space Station orbits Earth, to intentionally stress systems before flying crew.

“With Orion safely returned to Earth we can begin to see our next mission on the horizon which will fly crew to the Moon for the first time as a part of the next era of exploration,” said Jim Free, NASA associate administrator for the Exploration Systems Development Mission Directorate. “This begins our path to a regular cadence of missions and a sustained human presence at the Moon for scientific discovery and to prepare for human missions to Mars,” he added.

During the flight test, Orion stayed in space longer than any spacecraft designed for astronauts has done without docking to a space station. While in a distant lunar orbit, Orion surpassed the record for distance traveled by a spacecraft designed to carry humans, previously set during Apollo 13.

In the coming days, Orion will return to shore where technicians will offload the spacecraft and transfer it by truck back to Kennedy. Once at Kennedy, teams will open the hatch and unload several payloads, including Commander Moonikin Campos, the space biology experiments, Snoopy, and the official flight kit. Next, the capsule and its heat shield will undergo testing and analysis over the course of several months.

This is the first leg of the Artemis mission, with no crew on board, aimed at laying the foundation for a sustained long-term human presence on and around the Moon.

Through upcoming Artemis missions, NASA will land the first woman and the first person of color on the surface of the Moon.

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