Artemis 1 Mission Highlights Launch to Splashdown

The first mission of NASA's Artemis moon program is in the books.

An uncrewed Orion capsule splashed down in the Pacific Ocean off the coast of Baja California this afternoon (Dec. 11), bringing a successful end to NASA's historic Artemis 1 moon mission after a 1.4 million-mile (2.3 million kilometers) flight. The splashdown occurred 50 years to the day of NASA's Apollo 17 moon landing, the last astronaut mission to touch down on the lunar surface.

"Splashdown! From Tranquility Base to Taurus-Littrow to the tranquil waters of the Pacific, the latest chapter of NASA's journey to the moon comes to a close: Orion back on Earth," NASA spokesperson Rob Navias said during the agency's livestream of the event on Sunday. (Tranquility Base and Taurus-Littrow were the landing sites of Apollo 11 and Apollo 17, the first and final Apollo moon landing missions, respectively.)