The Artemis I mission, a 25-and-a-half-day unmanned test flight around the moon intended to pave the way for future astronaut missions, came to a momentous end when NASA’s Orion spacecraft made a successful landing in the ocean this Sunday (11).
The spacecraft ended the final leg of its journey by approaching the inner layer of Earth’s atmosphere after traveling 385,000 kilometers between the moon and Earth. It crashed at 2:40 pm (Brasília time) on Sunday into the Pacific Ocean, in Baja California, Mexico.
This final step was one of the mission’s most important and dangerous steps, but after diving in, Rob Navias, the NASA commentator who led Sunday’s broadcast, called the reentry process “manual.”
“I’m impressed,” NASA Administrator Bill Nelson said on Sunday. “This is an extraordinary day.”
The capsule is now floating in the Pacific Ocean, where it will remain until nearly 5 pm while NASA collects additional data and runs some tests. This process, like the rest of the mission, is aimed at ensuring that the Orion spacecraft is ready to carry astronauts.
“We are testing all the heat that came and was generated in the capsule. We want to make sure we characterize how this will affect the interior of the capsule,” NASA Flight Director Judd Frieling told reporters last week.
What happened
The spacecraft was traveling at about 32 times the speed of sound (40,000 kilometers per hour) when it hit the air – so fast that the compression waves caused the vehicle’s exterior to heat up to around 2760°C.
“The next big test is the heat shield,” Nelson told CNN in a Thursday phone interview, referring to the barrier designed to protect the Orion capsule from the excruciating physics of re-entering Earth’s atmosphere.
The extreme heat also caused air molecules to ionize, creating a buildup of plasma that caused a 5.5-minute communication blackout, according to Artemis I flight director Judd Frieling.
When the capsule reached about 61,000 meters above the Earth’s surface, it performed a roll maneuver that briefly sent the capsule back upwards – as if a stone had been dropped on the surface of a lake.
There are a few reasons to use the jump maneuver.
“No-jump entry gives us a consistent landing site that supports astronaut safety because it allows ground crews to better and more quickly coordinate recovery efforts,” said Joe Bomba, Lockheed Martin Orion aerothermal aeroscience lead, in a statement. Lockheed is NASA’s prime contractor for the Orion spacecraft.
“By splitting the heat and force of re-entry into two events, skipping entry also offers benefits such as lowering the G-forces that astronauts are subjected to,” according to Lockheed, referring to the crushing forces humans experience during the space flight.
Another communications blackout lasting about three minutes followed the jump manoeuvre.
As it embarked on its final descent, the capsule slowed dramatically, losing thousands of kilometers per hour in speed until its parachutes opened. At the time it fell, Orion was traveling at around 20 miles per hour.
Although there were no astronauts on this test mission – just a few dummies equipped to collect data and a Snoopy doll – Nelson, the head of NASA, stressed the importance of demonstrating that the capsule can make a safe return.
The space agency’s plans are to turn the Artemis lunar missions into a program that will send astronauts to Mars, a journey that will have a much faster and bolder re-entry process.

Orion traveled about 1.3 million miles (2 million kilometers) during this mission on a path that swung into a distant lunar orbit, taking the capsule farther than any spacecraft designed to carry humans has ever travelled.
A secondary objective of this mission was for Orion’s service module, a cylindrical accessory on the bottom of the spacecraft, to deploy 10 small satellites. But at least four of those satellites failed after being launched into orbit, including a miniature lunar module developed in Japan and a NASA payload that was supposed to be one of the first small satellites to explore interplanetary space.
On its journey, the spacecraft captured stunning images of Earth and, during two close flybys, images of the lunar surface and a mesmerizing “Earth ascent”.
Nelson said that if he had to give the Artemis I mission a grade so far, it would be an A.
“It’s not an A-plus simply because we expect things to go wrong. And the good news is, when they go wrong, NASA knows how to fix them,” said Nelson. But “if I were a teacher, I would give full marks”.
With the success of the Artemis I mission, NASA will now delve into the data collected on this flight and look to choose a crew for the Artemis II mission, which could take off in 2024.
Artemis II will aim to send astronauts on a similar trajectory to Artemis I, flying around the moon but not landing on its surface.
The Artemis III mission, currently scheduled to launch in 2025, is expected to put the boots back on the moon, and NASA officials have said it will include the first woman and first black person to reach such a milestone.
Source: CNN Brasil

Bruce Belcher is a seasoned author with over 5 years of experience in world news. He writes for online news websites and provides in-depth analysis on the world stock market. Bruce is known for his insightful perspectives and commitment to keeping the public informed.