After its 1.4 million mile mission to the moon and back, the Orion spacecraft for the mission Artemis I returned to NASA’s Kennedy Space Center on December 30. The capsule fell into the Pacific Ocean on December 11 and was transported by truck across the country from the San Diego Naval Base in California to the Kennedy plant in Florida.
Now that Orion is back at Kennedy, technicians will remove the payload from the capsule as part of decommissioning operations, including Commander Munikin Campos weightlessness indicator snoopy and official flight kit . Orion’s heat shield and other elements will be removed for careful analysis, and the rest will be removed.
Artemis I was a major step forward in NASA’s lunar exploration efforts and lays the groundwork for the next Space Launch System and Orion rocket mission to fly a crew around the moon on Artemis II.
