Artemis 1 splashes down safely, completes historic Moon mission
With the Orion capsule's safe landing, NASA has taken its first step toward getting astronauts back to the Moon for the first time in 50 years.
www.astronomy.comI don’t have live access to tools in this turn, but I can share the latest well-established info: Artemis 1 splashdown occurred in the Pacific Ocean off the Baja California coast, near a point south of Guadalupe Island, after its roughly 1.4 million-mile journey around the Moon. The recovery team retrieved the Orion capsule from the water and began post-splashdown procedures.[1][3][5]
Key points you might want:
- Location: Pacific Ocean, off the coast of Baja California, southwest of Mexico, near Guadalupe Island.
- Timing: Re-entry and splashdown occurred on December 11, 2022, with main parachutes slowing the capsule prior to splashdown around 12:40 p.m. EST (17:40 UTC) in the Pacific region.[3][5]
- Significance: First integrated test of NASA’s lunar return architecture; demonstrated heat shield performance and recovery operations for future crewed Artemis missions.[5][1]
If you’d like, I can pull a concise timeline and map-friendly coordinates for the splashdown area, or summarize the recovery timeline and the mission’s milestones.