The NASA Orion space capsule It splashed down in the Pacific on Sunday, completing the Artemis 1 mission, a voyage of more than 25 days around the Moon with the goal of returning humans there in just a few years.
The vertiginous descent of the spacecraft was slowed down first by the atmosphere and then by at least eleven parachutes, until it reached a speed of about 30 km/h when it touched the water.
“We had an absolutely perfect splashdown,” said Melissa Jones, head of recovery operations for NASA.
Shortly after, helicopters flew over the spacecraft, which showed no apparent damage. Orion was to be left in the water for about two hours, much longer than would have been spent with astronauts on board, in order to gather information, mainly on the heat induced inside.
Divers then attached cables to the Orion to lift it onto the USS Portland, an amphibious transport ship whose rear end will be partially submerged. They then pumped in water, allowing the capsule to be slowly lowered onto a specially designed platform to support it.
NASA’s Orion spacecraft completed its closest flyby of the Moon just 130 kilometers above the lunar surface
The USS Portland then headed to San Diego, California, where the capsule will be unloaded in the next few days.
The splashdown took place on Sunday off the Mexican island of Guadalupe at 5:40 p.m. GMT (09:40 a.m. local time).
“This day marks a great achievement for NASA, the United States, our international partners and all of humanity,” said the head of the US space agency, Bill Nelson, in a press release.
Nelson recognized the work of “thousands of people” who “for years have been immersed in this mission that inspires the world to work together to reach the unexplored reaches of the cosmos.”
“I don’t think any of us would have imagined that the mission would be this successful,” Mike Sarafin, Artemis mission manager, told a news conference.
“Now we have a foundational deep space transport system,” he added.
The capsule, which had no astronauts on board, re-entered the Earth’s atmosphere at a speed of 40,000 km/h and had to endure a heat of 2,800 degrees Celsius, half the temperature of the Sun’s surface.
The main objective of the mission was to test Orion’s heat shield, which at 5 meters in diameter is the largest ever built.
2.2 million kilometers
The success of this mission was crucial for NASA, which has invested tens of billions of dollars in the US program to return to the Moon, Artemis.
In addition to taking humans to the Moon, another of its objectives is to prepare a future trip to Mars.
A first test of the capsule had been carried out in 2014, but then it had not left Earth orbit, and therefore had entered the atmosphere more slowly (at about 32,000 km/h).
Orion traveled more than 2.2 million kilometers in space since its takeoff on November 16 during the first flight of NASA’s new megarocket, the SLS, which propelled it.
The spacecraft flew over the Moon to within 130 kilometers of its surface and ventured more than 430,000 kilometers from Earth, farther than any other spacecraft to date.
artemis 2 and 3
Recovering the capsule will allow NASA to gather crucial data for future missions.
It will provide you with information about the state of the ship after the flight, but also about the accelerations and vibrations suffered, and about the performance of a vest that a dummy carried inside the capsule to test the protection that a human would have against radiation during a space trip.
Some capsule components are expected to be reused in the Artemis 2 mission, which is already in advanced stages of planning.
This second mission, scheduled for 2024, will take a crew to the Moon, although without landing. NASA is expected to announce the names of the chosen astronauts very soon.
Artemis 3, officially scheduled for 2025, will land a spacecraft on the moon’s south pole for the first time, where there is water in the form of ice.
The Artemis program plans to send a woman and a non-white person to the Moon for the first time.
NASA’s goal is to establish a permanent presence on the Moon, with a base on its surface and a space station in its orbit.
Learning to live on the Moon would allow testing of all the technology needed for a multi-year trip to Mars, possibly in the late 2030s. (YO)
Source: Eluniverso
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