NASA’s Orion capsule, which is part of the Artemis-1 mission, is due to return to Earth on Sunday after a journey of just under a month around the Moon.
The capsule, which is manned by only three dummies, is scheduled to splash down at 12:39 p.m. Eastern Time near Guadalupe Island in the Pacific Ocean.
Recovery teams arrived on site on Saturday, where they were making final preparations to be ready to receive the capsule. On one ship, personnel were running simulations to ensure the entire team, led from Kennedy Space Center, Florida, would be ready to participate in recovery operations.
Teams will recover Orion and also attempt to recover the equipment dropped during the splashdown, including the front cover and the three main parachutes.
This last step of the Artemis-1 mission is crucial, especially for the heat shield. When it enters the atmosphere, it must be able to withstand a temperature of 2800°C.
The Orion capsule was launched into space on November 16 by the Space Launch System (SLS) rocket, after numerous delays due to technical problems and adverse weather conditions.
A little less than a week later, it arrived close to the Moon, “grazing” the surface of the star before undertaking its orbiting. The capsule approached 130 kilometers from the far side of the Moon.
Orion also broke NASA’s distance record for a manned spacecraft, flying more than 430,000 kilometers from Earth. The previous mark of nearly 400,000 kilometers was set by Apollo 13 in 1970.
NASA officials are very happy with how the mission has gone so far, but the return to Earth’s atmosphere will be decisive for the continuation of the Artemis program, the spiritual successor to the Apollo program which saw 12 astronauts walk on the Moon from 1969 to 1972.
The US space agency aims to send four astronauts around the Moon on the next flight, in 2024, and to land humans there as early as 2025.