After around four weeks in space, the unmanned “Orion” capsule of NASA’s “Artemis 1” moon mission is back on earth. She landed on schedule in the Pacific Ocean off the coast of Mexico on Sunday evening, as shown in live NASA images. “Splashdown,” NASA wrote on Twitter. The test mission is considered an important step in getting humans back on the moon.
The “Orion” capsule is now back home, NASA wrote. She traveled 1.4 million miles through space, circumnavigated the moon and collected data. This will help with the preparations to send astronauts to the moon on further “Artemis” missions. NASA boss Bill Nelson spoke of a “historic” day.
“Just like in a picture book”
“A historic moment and milestone in space travel,” wrote the German astronaut Alexander Gerst on Twitter. “Humanity once once more has a spaceship that can carry people beyond Earth orbit into space to explore the Moon and Mars.” He congratulated the teams involved for this “fantastic achievement”.
The return of the “Orion” capsule looked “like in a picture book”, said Martin Tajmar, space systems expert at the TU Dresden, on Sunday evening of the dpa. However, it should take days before all the data from the landing have been evaluated.
After landing, “Orion” will be taken to the port of San Diego. Even before landing, Nelson had described the “Artemis” test mission as an “extraordinary success”. With the “Artemis” program, named following the Greek goddess of the moon, US astronauts are to land on the moon once more in the coming years, including for the first time a woman and a non-white person.
Twelve astronauts have visited the moon so far
A first manned flight (“Artemis 2”) around the moon is to be followed by another manned flight including a moon landing (“Artemis 3”). NASA put the last humans on the moon in 1972 with the “Apollo 17” mission. Overall, the United States was the only country to date to land twelve astronauts on the moon with the “Apollo” missions between 1969 and 1972.
“Artemis 1” was launched – following skyrocketing costs and repeated postponements – on November 16 with the “Space Launch System” rocket from the Cape Canaveral cosmodrome in the US state of Florida. All of the planned milestones were then ticked off for regarding four weeks: flyby the moon, swinging into orbit of the moon, swinging out of orbit, another flyby by the moon – and now: landing. The European Space Agency (ESA) and space agencies from several other countries are also involved in “Artemis”.
Private moon mission launched
While NASA was celebrating an important stage in its return to the moon, a rocket with a lander from the Japanese company ispace on board was launched from Cape Canaveral on Sunday towards the moon. If everything goes according to plan, the lunar module, christened “Hakuto-R”, should touch down on the lunar surface at the end of April.
It remains to be seen whether it will be the first successful private moon mission. Rival firms plan to take a more direct route to the moon early next year. Should they also succeed, they might get there sooner than “Hakuto-R”.
