The Orion spacecraft zoomed through Earth’s atmosphere and splashed down in the Pacific Ocean on Sunday, the U.S. space agency confirmed, capping a 25-day voyage around the moon and back as part of NASA’s first Artemis mission.
NASA’s gumdrop-shaped capsule splashed down on time at 9:40 a.m. PT (12:40 p.m. ET) near Guadalupe Island, off the coast of Mexico’s Baja California peninsula, after deploying various sets of manoeuvres to slow its return from space and dissipate heat around the spacecraft.
The incoming capsule hit the atmosphere at Mach 32, or 32 times the speed of sound, and endured re-entry temperatures of 2,760 degrees C shortly after hitting Earth’s atmosphere for a 20-minute plunge to the ocean.
Re-entry marked the single most critical phase of Orion’s journey, testing whether its newly designed heat shield would withstand atmospheric friction.
WATCH | Orion returns to earth after 25-day journey to the moon:
NASA’s Orion capsule splashes down after Artemis I flight
NASA’s Orion capsule splashed down in the Pacific Ocean Sunday, concluding the Armetis I flight around the moon and setting the stage for the eventual return of astronauts to the moon, including a Canadian.
“It is our priority-one objective,” NASA’s Artemis I mission manager Mike Sarafin said at a briefing last week. “There is no arc-jet or aerothermal facility here on Earth capable of replicating hypersonic re-entry with a heat shield of this size.”
The flight home also tested the advanced guidance and thruster systems used to steer the capsule from the moon to its proper re-entry point and through descent, maintaining the spacecraft at just the right angle to avoid burning up.
