Overview
- Orion and its four astronauts splashed down Friday off San Diego, ending a nearly 10‑day lunar flyby that took humans a record 252,756 miles from Earth.
- NASA’s next mission, Artemis III, will keep a crew in Earth orbit to practice docking Orion with a commercial lunar lander, with hardware already at Kennedy Space Center and a crew announcement expected soon.
- SpaceX’s Starship and Blue Origin’s Blue Moon are racing to supply landers for the program, with test flights planned as NASA targets an Artemis IV south‑pole landing in 2028.
- Orion met its main goals but exposed issues that now drive design work, including worsening helium‑valve leaks in the propulsion system and a balky toilet, as teams inspect the heat shield after a clean reentry.
- The crew returned unprecedented far‑side views, an in‑space solar eclipse, and flashes from micrometeoroid hits on the dark lunar surface, adding unique human‑observed data as NASA builds toward a sustained lunar presence.