Artemis

Fresh off the 1.4-million-mile Artemis 1 test flight around around the moon, NASA’s Orion spacecraft arrived Dec. 30 back at Kennedy Space Center in Florida, where technicians will offload propellants and payloads, and begin removing internal hardware destined to fly back to the moon with astronauts on the next Orion crew capsule in 2024.

NASA’s Orion spacecraft parachuted to a gentle splashdown in the Pacific Ocean Sunday west of Baja California, ending an unpiloted test flight to the moon that spanned 25-and-a-half days and 1.4 million miles, proving out a new rocket and capsule to carry astronauts back to Earth’s celestial companion.

NASA’s unpiloted Orion spacecraft re-entered Earth’s atmosphere at 32 times the speed of sound Sunday, surviving a fiery-hot descent before deploying parachutes and splashing down in the Pacific Ocean west of Baja California at 12:40 p.m. EST (1740 GMT). The Orion capsule successfully completed NASA’s Artemis 1 mission, a precursor to future astronaut missions on the spacecraft.

Closing out a 25-day voyage around the moon, NASA’s Artemis 1 spacecraft closed in on Earth Saturday, on track for a 25,000-mph re-entry Sunday that will subject the unpiloted capsule to a hellish 5,000-degree inferno before splashdown off Baja California.

Flying just 80 miles off the lunar surface, NASA’s Orion capsule fired its main engine Monday to slingshot around the moon and set a course for splashdown Dec. 11 in the Pacific Ocean to complete the Artemis 1 test flight. The unpiloted spacecraft relayed home ethereal real-time views of the moon’s cratered surface and a crescent Earth suspended in the blackness of space a quarter-million miles away.

NASA’s Orion spacecraft successfully fired its main engine for three-and-a-half minutes at 11:43 a.m. EST (1643 GMT) Monday as it flew 80 miles from the surface of the moon, redirecting the capsule’s trajectory for the return trip to Earth to wrap up the Artemis 1 test flight.

Continuing a “drama-free” test flight, NASA’s unpiloted Orion spacecraft is set to fire its main engine Thursday to leave a distant orbit around the moon, heading for a flyby close to the lunar surface next week to swing onto a trajectory bringing it back to Earth for splashdown in the Pacific Ocean on Dec. 11.

At the halfway point in NASA’s Artemis 1 mission, the unpiloted Orion moonship is chalking up a near-flawless flight, mission managers said Monday, beaming back spectacular images of Earth disappearing from view as it was eclipsed by the moon.

Another major engine burn on NASA’s Artemis 1 mission placed the Orion spacecraft into a distant retrograde orbit around the moon, where it will spend six days performing more tests and demonstrations before returning to Earth. The 88-second burn by Orion’s main engine occurred at 4:52 p.m. EST (2152 GMT) Friday.