NASA's Artemis I Orion spacecraft returns to Earth - The Washington Post

Speaking during the space agency’s broadcast of the Artemis I mission, NASA Administrator Bill Nelson called it “an extraordinary day.”

“It’s historic because we are now going back to space, to deep space, with a new generation,” he said, calling it a new era of human spaceflight, “one that marks new technology, a whole new breed of astronauts, and a vision of the future.” The heat shield, one of the key tests of the mission, worked “beautifully,” he said.

The flight clears the way for future missions with astronauts on board. And now NASA’s engineers will study the mission to see what, if anything, they need to improve before putting crews on board.

While the Artemis program is designed to eventually return humans to the moon, NASA is also planning a number of uncrewed lunar landings to deliver science experiments and equipment to Earth’s neighbor.

Under a program called the Commercial Lunar Payloads Program, NASA is working with several companies to fly missions to the moon. No commercial entity has ever landed a spacecraft on the moon, but two now say they hope to next year.

Astrobotic Technology, based in Pittsburgh, has said that its Peregrine spacecraft will launch during the first quarter of 2023. Intuitive Machines, based in Houston, has said it hopes to launch sometime between March and May next year.

With all going well with the splashdown and recovery, the last major milestones of the Artemis I mission, NASA plans to put astronauts on the next flight, Artemis II, which would also orbit the moon. But that might not come for a while.

The mission is scheduled for 2024. But NASA still needs to finish its second Space Launch System rocket and Orion spacecraft. And since some of the components on Orion will be reused, they need to be harvested from the spacecraft and installed and tested on the next capsule.

The Orion spacecraft has splashed down in the Pacific Ocean off the Baja Peninsula, after a 1.4 million-mile journey to the moon and back. Recovery crews are now making their way to secure the spacecraft and to conduct tests before pulling the capsule onto the Navy’s USS Portland ship.

As the Orion spacecraft plummets through Earth’s atmosphere, its three main parachutes have deployed to slow the capsule to a splashdown in the Pacific Ocean. The mission continues to proceed smoothly, NASA’s commentator Rob Navias said during the agency’s online broadcast.

NASA’s Orion spacecraft has slammed into Earth’s atmosphere, traveling at 24,464 mph, NASA’s Rob Navias said during the agency’s online broadcast. As it plummets toward Earth, it will generate temperatures as high as 5,000 degrees Fahrenheit, a key test for the spacecraft’s heat shield.

As the Orion spacecraft barrels through the atmosphere on its return, the thickening atmosphere will create drag and slow the vehicle down. And then the parachutes will deploy to bring the capsule down safely.

It is a crucial system in the final phase of flight — one that has to go well if NASA is going to put a crew of astronauts in the capsule for the next mission. NASA has tested the system rigorously, but “there’s definitely some risks there associated with the parachute deployment, and the subsonic descent and deceleration of the vehicle,” Mike Sarafin, NASA’s Artemis I mission manager, recently told reporters. “That said, the program … put in considerable effort to develop and certify the parachute systems.”

The Apollo era was defined by its images: the photo of Buzz Aldrin on the surface of the moon saluting the American flag; the image of a footprint in the lunar soil; perhaps none more memorable than Earthrise, the shot of Earth hanging in the darkness of space, taken on Christmas Eve 1968 during the Apollo 8 mission.

The Orion spacecraft does not have any astronauts on board, but it does have cameras. And they’ve been beaming back all kinds of amazing imagery that could help embed the Artemis program in the national consciousness and endure for years to come.

Orion’s homecoming comes 50 years to the day after the Apollo 17 spacecraft landing on the lunar surface in 1972, the last human mission to the moon. As he prepared to depart the moon for the return trip to Earth, Eugene Cernan, the mission’s commander, said: “America’s challenge of today has forged man’s destiny of tomorrow. As we leave the moon and Taurus-Littrow, we leave as we came, and, God willing, we shall return, with peace and hope for all mankind.”

That has yet to happen. But the successful Artemis I mission heralds a series of upcoming missions that are to be piloted by a new generation of NASA astronauts as part of the space agency’s Artemis program, NASA has said.