Entry of Orion spacecraft back to Earth and splashdown in the Pacific Ocean, West of Baja California, at 9:40 a.m. PST (12:40 p.m. EST) Sunday, December 11, 2022, after a record-breaking mission, traveling more than 1.4 million miles on a path around the Moon and returning safely to Earth, completing the Artemis I flight test. Splashdown was the final milestone of the Artemis I mission that began with a successful liftoff of NASA’s Space Launch System (SLS) rocket Nov. 16, from Launch Pad 39B at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida. Over the course of 25.5 days, NASA tested Orion in the harsh environment of deep space before flying astronauts on Artemis II.
Credit: NASA
