NASA’s Artemis II mission successfully reached its completion as it splashed in the Pacific Ocean on April 10, marking the end of a historic 10-day journey around the Moon. Shortly after 5 pm PT, NASA’s gumdrop-shaped Orion capsule, known as Integrity, gracefully parachuted into calm waters off the coast of Southern California.
The Orion spacecraft carrying four astronauts, Reid Wiseman, Victor Glover, Christina Koch and Jeremy Hansen, returned safely after travelling more than 694,000 miles, per Reuters.
The mission is being hailed as a major step toward humanity’s return to the Moon under NASA’s Artemis programme.
Read more: Artemis Moon flypast today, Netflix to livestream: All about mission’s big day
The splashdown: “A 13-minute fiery plunge through Earth’s atmosphere”
A NASA webcast featured a live video stream of the splashdown, which occurred approximately two hours before sunset. Rob Navias, a NASA commentator, described the landing as “a perfect bull’s eye splashdown for Integrity and its four astronauts.”
During the height of re-entry stress, high heat and air compression created a red-hot sheath of ionized gas, or plasma, that encased the capsule and prevented radio communication with the crew for a few minutes.
The capsule’s exterior reached temperatures of almost 5,000 degrees Fahrenheit as a result of the frictional heat produced during its white-knuckled, 13-minute scorching descent through Earth’s atmosphere.
The crew’s return demonstrated that the Lockheed Martin-built (LMT.N) Orion spacecraft could resist the tremendous forces of re-entry from a lunar-return trajectory, therefore clearing a crucial last obstacle.
Once contact was restored, two sets of parachutes were visible billowing from the free-falling capsule’s nose. The capsule’s descent was slowed to roughly 15 mph (25 kph) before Orion gently landed on the ocean.
Read more: ‘Story of humanity’: Why NASA’s Artemis II mission to Moon is important
Historic mission and stepping stones to Mars
The Artemis II voyage was the first crewed test flight in a series of Artemis missions that seek to return astronauts to the lunar surface beginning in 2028.
It traveled a total of 694,392 miles (1,117,515 km), spanning two Earth orbits and a climactic lunar flyby around 252,000 miles away.
After decades of concentrating on space shuttles and the International Space Station, NASA’s human spaceflight program was redirected beyond low-Earth orbit with the launch of the Artemis program.
The Artemis program’s ultimate objective is to have a permanent presence on the moon as a prelude to future exploration of Mars by humans.
