• NASA’s Orion capsule will splash down in the Pacific Ocean.
• It will splash down on Sunday.
• NASA says Orion’s flight so far has been successful.

NASA’s Orion capsule will splash down in the Pacific Ocean after a three-week test voyage that includes a near flyby at the Moon.

The capsule will splash down Sunday at 17:39 GMT off Guadalupe, Mexico.

Orion’s launch last month, with a simulated crew of three mannequins, set off NASA’s Artemis mission, which seeks to return people to the Moon and prepare for a voyage to Mars.

NASA says Orion’s flight so far has been successful.

In late November, midway through its 25-day journey, the capsule traveled 432,210km (268,563 miles) from Earth.

That’s approximately 32,187km (20,000 miles) beyond the mark set by Apollo 13 in 1970, which aborted its lunar landing after a mechanical breakdown.

Orion passed within 130km (80 miles) of the lunar surface on Monday, the closest approach for a human-carrying spacecraft since Apollo 17 50 years ago.

The main test of Orion’s heat shield, the largest ever built, comes in the last minutes of Sunday’s flight.

The spaceship will enter Earth’s atmosphere at 40,000kmph (25,000mph) and must withstand temperatures of 2,800°C (5,072°F) – half that of the sun’s surface.

The capsule’s first test was in 2014, but it lingered in Earth’s orbit, thus it reentered the atmosphere at 32,187kmph.

Artemis’ mission manager, Mike Sarafin, called Orion’s heat shield “safety-critical equipment.”

It protects the spacecraft and astronauts. He said, “The heat shield must work.”

NASA sent the USS Portland, helicopters, and inflatable boats to collect Orion.

NASA will let Orion float in the water for two hours to collect data for future flights.

NASA’s Orion vehicle integration manager Jim Geffre said, “We’ll see how heat soaks back into the crew module and how it impacts the temperature inside.”

Other data to be collected include the vessel’s state after its voyage, acceleration and vibration data, and the operation of a radiation-protection jacket worn by a mannequin in the capsule.

A crewed Artemis II voyage around the Moon and back might happen as early as 2024, but without landing.

NASA will announce the astronauts soon.

Artemis III will land a spacecraft on the Moon’s south pole, which has iced-over water.

Twelve white men have walked on the Moon. This happened during the 1972 Apollo missions.

Artemis will send a woman and a person of color to the Moon.

NASA wants to create a permanent human presence on the Moon with a base and space station.

Living on the Moon should help engineers develop technologies for a long trip to Mars in the 2030s.

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