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We’re one step closer to the next moon walk.
NASA’s Orion capsule returned to Earth Sunday afternoon, ending its 25-day test flight around the moon — 50 years to the day of the Apollo program’s last moon landing.
The capsule — with no crew aboard — made an ocean splashdown at 12:40 p.m. EST off Mexico’s Baja California, trekking some 239,000 miles between the moon and Earth.
The Orion capsule’s 25,000 mph re-entry coincides with the 50th anniversary of the last lunar landing by Apollo 17 astronauts Eugene Cernan and Harrison Schmitt on Dec. 11, 1972.
The Artemis 1 mission is the first to visit the moon ever since.
