NASA successfully completes its Artemis I mission

NASA’s Orion spacecraft has returned to Earth. The uncrewed capsule safely splashed down into the Pacific Ocean off of Mexico’s Baja California around 12:40PM ET on Sunday, marking the end of the landmark Artemis I mission.

The capsule reached speeds of about 24,500mph as it returned to Earth, while its heat shield sustained scorching temperatures of around 5,000 degrees Fahrenheit. Orion traveled a total of 1.4 million miles through space over the span of 25.5 days.

As it reentered Earth’s atmosphere, the Orion capsule successfully performed a skip entry maneuver, in which Orion dipped into Earth’s upper atmosphere and lifted out before reentering again. The move is supposed to help the spacecraft land in the designated splashdown location and is a first for a spacecraft designed to carry humans.

Once it reached about 24,000 feet from the ground, the capsule began deploying its parachutes to help it slow down as it descended into the Pacific Ocean. The US Navy started the process of recovering the spacecraft shortly after splashdown, but that will take several hours to complete.

Now that Orion’s back on the ground, NASA will start capturing data from the sensor-equipped mannequins on board so it can get ready for future missions involving humans. NASA hopes to get humans back on the Moon during a second Artemis mission that’s slated for 2024.

“A new day has dawned,” NASA administrator Bill Nelson said during an interview following the splashdown. “An Artemis generation is taking us there.”

After several delays, NASA’s Space Launch System (SLS) spacecraft lifted off on November 16th and catapulted the Orion capsule on a mission around the moon. The capsule passed within 81 miles of the lunar surface before blasting 57,000 miles beyond the moon, where it entered a distant orbit for about one week. About halfway through the mission, the spacecraft reached 268,563 miles away from Earth, the furthest any human-rated spacecraft has traveled.