Orion safely returns to Earth: What the success of NASA’s Artemis I mission means for the future

Orion splashed down in the Pacific Ocean Sunday, this time without any life aboard. However, the next flight could see humans being in charge of the capsule's destiny.

Updated Dec 13, 2022 | 06:15 PM IST

NASA's Orion capsule is drawn to the well deck of the USS Portland after it splashed down following a successful uncrewed Artemis I moon mission, Sunday, Dec. 11, 2022, in the Pacific Ocean off the coast of Baja California, Mexico.

Photo : AP

More than 50 years ago, NASA - the American space agency - ‘did the impossible by making it possible’. They landed humans on the Moon . Now, five decades later, NASA is doing that again, but for a different purpose.

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These are the words of NASA administrator Bill Nelson. He was speaking on the occasion of the safe return to Earth of NASA’s Orion space capsule on Sunday.

The next-gen astronaut ship was in space for a near-26-day mission, dubbed Artemis 1, to orbit our planet's only natural satellite.

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Orion splashed down in the Pacific Ocean Sunday, this time without any life aboard. However, the next flight could see humans being in charge of the capsule's destiny.

"This time we go back to the Moon to learn to live, to work, to invent, to create, in order to go on out into the cosmos to further explore. The plan is to get ready to go with humans to Mars late in the decade of the 2030s, and then even further beyond," Nelson told the media upon a historic return of the Orion capsule that marked a leap into the future for the US space agency.

"This is what mission success looks like," Mike Sarafin, the Artemis project manager, summed it up well.

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NASA's Orion capsule descends toward splash down

Orion's next, complex missions as part of the Artemis project could happen as early 2024 and humans could fly most likely in 2025 or 2026.

Orion's safe return solves one important problem for NASA - the agency had used a new design protective layer on the underside of the capsule and its success removes doubts as regards safety of astronauts on future missions.

While an official inspection will find out whether the heatshield had worked, so far it appears that the new design held fort during the intense and fiery re-entry into Earth's atmosphere.

The service and propulsion module for Orion missions are being supplied by the European Space Agency. The ESA has, in fact, already delivered to NASA the propulsion module for the next Artemis mission that will carry a crew. The module for the much-anticipated Moon landing mission, the Artemis III, is in the advanced stage of assembly, reports the BBC.

Meanwhile, the landing system for Artemis Moon landing mission is being developed by Elon Musk 's SpaceX. Starship, as Musk calls it, will include a giant rocket and a crew vehicle. A test flight is due in the next few months.

The plan is that Starship will help Orion's astronauts get down to the Moon's surface.

As NASA's associate administrator for Exploration Systems Development Jim Free put it, as reported by the BBC: "We are on our path to getting that base on the Moon, to getting the understanding we need to go on to Mars and doing the science that's front and centre."

P.S. - Humans last landed on the Moon on December 11, 1972. Those astronauts were part of the Apollo 17 mission.

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