After making a close pass at the Moon and venturing further into space than any previous habitable spacecraft, NASA's Orion capsule is due to splash down Sunday in the final test of a high-stakes mission called Artemis.
WASHINGTON, United States - After making a close pass at the Moon and venturing further into space than any previous habitable spacecraft, NASA's Orion capsule is due to splash down Sunday in the final test of a high-stakes mission called Artemis.
A first test of the capsule was carried out in 2014 but that time the capsule stayed in Earth's orbit, so it came back into the atmosphere at a slower speed of around 20,000 miles per hour.A US Navy ship, the USS Portland, has been positioned in the Pacific to recover the Orion capsule in an exercise that NASA has been rehearsing for years. Helicopters and inflatable boats will also be deployed for this task.
"We'll see how the heat soaks back into the crew module and how that affects the temperature inside," said Jim Geffre, NASA's Orion vehicle integration manager. At its nearest point to the Moon it flew less than 80 miles from the surface. And it broke the distance record for a habitable capsule, venturing 268,000 miles from our planet.Recovering the spacecraft will allow NASA to gather data that is crucial for future missions.
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