It was two years in the past on December 11 when NASA’s Orion spacecraft splashed down within the Pacific Ocean west of Mexico’s Baja California in a mission that successfully marked the launch of the area company’s bold Artemis program, which plans to ship astronauts again to the moon and assemble a everlasting lunar base.
NASA shared a number of pictures of the homecoming on its Orion Spacecraft social media account on Wednesday.
Please allow Javascript to view this content material
Orion splashed down within the Pacific Ocean on at the present time in 2022, on the finish of its 25.5-day mission across the Moon on #Artemis I, totaling 1.4M mi (2.6M km).
After investigating how the warmth defend fared, we’re making ready for Artemis II, launching 2026. Extra:… pic.twitter.com/TJ2qx55bO9
— Orion Spacecraft (@NASA_Orion) December 11, 2024
The Artemis I mission bought underway from the Kennedy Area Middle on November 16, 2022, when NASA’s Area Launch System (SLS) rocket, on its first flight, powered the uncrewed Orion capsule to area in an important take a look at of its onboard programs.
5 days later, Orion made its first flyby of the moon, coming inside simply 80 miles of the lunar floor earlier than reaching the furthest distance from Earth ever traveled by an astronaut-ready car. The space of about 268,553 miles surpassed the earlier file for a human-rated spacecraft set by Apollo 13 in 1970, which reached 248,655 miles (400,171 kilometers) from Earth.
Orion efficiently traveled again to Earth to finish its historic flight on December 11, 2022.
As this was a take a look at mission, it’s little shock that numerous points got here to gentle that needed to addressed. One of the vital regarding was an issue with Orion’s heatshield, which protects the spacecraft and its occupants because it reenters Earth’s environment at excessive pace. Engineers noticed better deterioration than anticipated within the heatshield, and are persevering with to work on resolving the problem.
The continued work is likely one of the the reason why NASA just lately introduced it was delaying the Artemis II mission from 2025 to no sooner than 2026. The information got here as a disappointment to these following the progress of the Artemis program, however the profitable completion of Artemis I confirmed that NASA’s next-generation deep-space exploration programs have been near being prepared, and gave engineers loads of information to work with to refine these programs and enhance them even additional.
