Overview
- Orion splashed down Friday evening in the Pacific near San Diego, closing a near 10‑day crewed test flight that included a lunar flyby.
- NASA confirmed a helium leak in the service module at an oxidizer pressure‑supply valve, with rates higher than ground tests but within safe limits and not venting to space.
- The mission team canceled a planned manual piloting demo and instead ran propulsion checks to see how the spacecraft’s orientation affected the leak.
- Engineers observed similar leakage on Artemis I and, with the service module hardware not recoverable after jettison, plan a new helium valve before Artemis 4 targeted for 2028.
- In a parallel move in lunar exploration, China’s Chang’e‑7 probe arrived at the Wenchang launch site for pre‑launch work toward a late‑2026 south‑polar mission.