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The first phase of NASA's manned lunar exploration plan has been successfully completed.
After four delays, the unmanned spacecraft 'Orion', which was launched last month, returned safely to Earth today (local time on the 11th) after a lunar orbital flight.
Correspondent Kim Jong-won from New York.
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The unmanned capsule spacecraft 'Orion', which entered the atmosphere, falls over the Pacific Ocean while hanging from a parachute.
The first stage of the 'Artemis Project', which the United States is conducting to land astronauts on the moon again in half a century, has been successfully completed.
After being delayed four times, Orion, which was launched on a rocket last month, returned to Earth in 25 days after flying in lunar orbit carrying a mannequin made of a material similar to the human body.
Upon entering the atmosphere, the speed reached 40,000 km per hour, 32 times the speed of sound.
One of Orion's missions this time around is to see if it can protect astronauts from these extreme temperatures, and NASA said the landing process was close to perfect.
[Nude Marancy/NASA Official: This Artemis Phase 1 experiment was very phenomenal.
The test flight was focused on finding out if the engineering and design worked.
This experiment looks fantastic.]
NASA will challenge the second stage of Artemis, which challenges lunar orbit flight in 2024, and the final stage of landing astronauts on the south pole of the moon in 2025.
Meanwhile, Japan, which is also challenging lunar exploration, also succeeded in launching a lunar lander developed by a private company called ispace from Florida, USA.