Artemis 1: Orion Successfully Splashes Down

Orion has successfully splashed down off the coast of California, bringing an end to the historic Artemis 1 mission!

NASA's spacecraft splashed down off the coast of California at approximately 12:40 EST today - bringing an end to the historic Artemis 1 mission. 50 years after the splashdown of Apollo 17, Orion successfully splashed down following a tense atmospheric re-entry.

Orion begun it's first entry interface at 12:21 EST, following separation from the European Service Module (ESM) at 12:01 EST and entered the second entry interface some 6 minutes later. Orion's two drogue chutes, designed to slow the vehicle down ahead of main chute deployment, deployed at 12:36 EST, and the main parachutes deployed a minute later. The Orion capsule, manufactured by Lockheed Martin, splashed down in the Pacific Ocean at 12:40 EST.

Orion has been through a ~3 week mission, and has smashed every milestone along the entire journey. During a media briefing on the 9th December, Philippe Deloo, the ESM Programme Manager confirmed that it's been an outstanding mission thus far, there were no major issues and has gone perfect from their point of view. Assuming splashdown data followed through as planned, Artemis 1 is looking like an incredibly successful mission.

A video of splashdown can be found on our YouTube channel: https://youtu.be/adhgm8rOvJI