NASA’s Artemis 1 Orion spacecraft returned to Kennedy Space Center after completing its 2.2 million-kilometer journey to the Moon earlier last month.
The return home took place on December 30. The capsule landed in the Pacific Ocean on December 11. After picking up the USS Portland unmanned crew vehicle and bringing it to the San Diego Naval Base on December 13, the capsule sailed overland for Florida the next day.
Now that Orion has returned to Kennedy Space Center, NASA will disassemble and analyze the spacecraft’s heat shield to determine exactly how it works during atmospheric reentry. Moonikin Campos, the test dummy NASA sent to Orion to collect data on how travel to the Moon could affect humans will also be examined.
“Artemis I was a major step forward as part of NASA’s lunar exploration efforts and lays the groundwork for the next mission for the Space Launch System rocket and the Orion crew to fly around the Moon aboard Artemis II,” NASA said in a statement. .
While Artemis II will launch in 2024 at the earliest, there’s a lot to look forward to between today and next year. NASA had promised to announce in early 2023 who the mission’s four-person crew would be.
Artemis II will make the first manned Moon landing since the end of the Apollo program in 1972.
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