NASA Celebrates Completion Of Historic Artemis 1 Moon Mission As Orion Capsule Makes Successful Splashdown
The Artemis 1 mission was completed on Sunday when NASA's Orion spacecraft splashed down in the Pacific Ocean off the coast of Baja California, Mexico.
The Artemis 1 spacecraft has returned less than 26 days after being launched on NASA's Space Launch System (SLS) rocket, which is its most powerful ever. The agency's first lunar mission came to an end with the dramatic reentry process, which entered Earth's atmosphere at a speed of around 25,000 miles per hour.
"Splashdown! From Tranquility Base to Taurus-Littrow to the tranquil waters of the Pacific, the latest chapter of NASA's journey to the moon comes to a close: Orion back on Earth," NASA spokesperson Rob Navias said during the agency's livestream of the event on Sunday.
During the missions, Orion made two close passes above the moon's surface, representing an end-to-end test of the system that NASA hopes will return astronauts to the moon's surface in the coming years.
While there were no astronauts onboard Artemis 1, the nearly month-long trip around the moon is an important demonstration of NASA's lunar program.
NASA originally tried to launch Artemis 1 in late August, but severe technical difficulties, including a leak of liquid hydrogen propellant, set things back a month.
In late September, the Artemis 1 team rolled the SLS and Orion off Pad 39B at NASA's Kennedy Space Center (KSC) in Florida to shelter from Hurricane Ian. The Artemis 1 stack remained within KSC's massive Vehicle Assembly Building for more than a month, receiving upgrades and repairs.
On Nov. 4, apparently after the end of hurricane season, team members rolled the rocket and capsule back out to the pad. On Nov. 10, however, Nicole blasted into the Space Coast as a Category 1 hurricane but swiftly downgraded to a tropical storm.
The SLS and Orion survived Nicole on the launch pad in good condition, and inspections revealed that both vehicles were ready for liftoff. That launch, the first for the SLS and the second for Orion, which traveled to Earth orbit briefly in December 2014, took place on Nov. 16, and it was spectacular.
The SLS launched Orion exactly as planned. At liftoff, the massive rocket generated 8.8 million pounds of thrust, making it the most powerful launcher ever to fly successfully.
NASA will be free to start preparing for the Artemis program's first-ever crewed flight, Artemis 2, which is scheduled to launch astronauts around the moon in 2024, provided that none of the postflight analyses reveal any significant issues.
The agency plans to land astronauts near the moon's south pole on Artemis 3 in 2025 or 2026, a mission that will employ SpaceX's huge new Starship vehicle as a lunar lander.