NASA’s Orion space capsule on Sunday landed in the Pacific Ocean to conclude a successful test mission to the moon and back. The unmanned crew module designed to carry astronauts on future missions to the lunar surface is ejected the shores of San Diego at 12:40 p.m. ET.
“This is an extraordinary day,” Bill Nelson, administrator of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration, said during an agency live stream after Orion’s return. “It’s history because we’re now going back into space, into deep space, with a new generation.”
Fifty years ago, the astronauts on NASA’s last Apollo mission, Apollo 17, were the last to set foot on the moon. Artemis is the agency’s program to return astronauts to the moon with the ultimate goal of going to Mars to explore deep space.
