Nfter about four weeks in space, the unmanned “Orion” capsule of the NASA moon mission “Artemis 1” is back on earth. The capsule landed in the Pacific Ocean off the coast of Mexico on Sunday evening, according to live images from the US space agency NASA. With the help of specialists, divers and boats, “Orion” is now to be brought to the port of San Diego. The test mission is considered an important step in getting humans back on the moon.
Even before landing, NASA boss Bill Nelson had described the “Artemis” test mission as an “extraordinary success”. With the “Artemis” program, named after the Greek goddess of the moon, US astronauts are to land on the moon again in the coming years, including for the first time a woman and a non-white person.
A first manned flight (“Artemis 2”) around the moon is to be followed by another manned flight including a moon landing (“Artemis 3”). NASA put the last humans on the moon in 1972 with the “Apollo 17” mission. Overall, the United States was the only country to date to land twelve astronauts on the moon with the “Apollo” missions between 1969 and 1972.
“Artemis 1” was launched – after skyrocketing costs and repeated postponements – on November 16 with the “Space Launch System” rocket from the Cape Canaveral cosmodrome in the US state of Florida. All of the planned milestones were then ticked off for about four weeks: flyby the moon, swinging into the moon’s orbit, swinging out of the moon’s orbit, another flyby by the moon – and now: landing. The European Space Agency ESA and space agencies from several other countries are also involved in “Artemis”.