NASA's Orion capsule lands in Pacific Ocean after test flight to moon
NASA's Orion space capsule landed Sunday in the Pacific Ocean after traveling 1.4 million miles through space and orbiting the moon during a test flight that is expected to clear the way for a manned lunar flyby mission.
"Orion has splashed down off the coast of Baja, California. Our spacecraft is home," NASA tweeted on its page for the mission.
The space agency posted a video of the capsule parachuting into the ocean. Orion collected data that NASA plans on using to send astronauts to space and eventually to the moon on Artemis missions in the future.
A Navy ship recovered the spacecraft and its three test dummy occupants after Orion reentered the atmosphere at 5,000 degrees Fahrenheit, The Associated Press reported.
Orion's reentry came on the 50th anniversary of the last Apollo moon landing. The capsule was launched into space 25 days ago after several delays.