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The first phase of NASA's manned lunar exploration plan, the 'Artemis Project', has been successfully completed.
After being delayed four times, the unmanned spacecraft Orion, which was launched last month, returned safely to Earth today (12th) after a lunar orbital flight.
Correspondent Kim Jong-won reports from New York.
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After entering the atmosphere, the unmanned capsule spacecraft Orion falls into the Pacific Ocean while hanging from a parachute.
The first phase 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.
When entering the atmosphere, the speed is 40,000 km per hour, which is 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.
In this exploration, Orion, which came close to 130 km above the lunar surface, set a record by flying to the farthest distance from Earth, 430,000 km, as a spacecraft capable of carrying astronauts.
[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 very fantastic.]
In 2024, NASA will challenge the second stage of Artemis, which will fly to the moon with a person on board, and the final stage of landing astronauts at 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.