The White Home has congratulated NASA on the success of its epic moon mission.
U.S. Vice President Kamala Harris, who additionally chairs the Nationwide House Council, praised the company and its companions for his or her work on the profitable Artemis 1 mission to the moon , which splashed down on Sunday afternoon (Dec. 11).
“I applaud the workforce for his or her work on finishing a profitable Artemis 1 mission. We’re one step nearer to returning astronauts to the moon,” Harris wrote in a tweet (opens in new tab) on Sunday.
The Orion spacecraft made a profitable splashdown at 12:40 p.m. EST (1740 GMT) within the Pacific Ocean, concluding the 25.5-day Artemis 1 moon mission that launched on Nov. 16. The capsule completed its journey nearby of the USS Portland, a Navy ship on responsibility within the Pacific Ocean for restoration operations.
In photographs: 10 greatest images from NASA’s Artemis 1 mission
Harris was lively within the space sphere in the summertime and fall main as much as the Artemis 1 launch, together with attending one of the mission launch attempts in late August. She additionally headlined an initiative to increase diversity within the space business, by prioritizing high-needs professions amongst a wider swath of scholars in partnership with a number of corporations.
The Vice President additionally continued calls to abandon destructive anti-satellite testing throughout a gathering of the Nationwide House Council on Sept. 9, and he or she labored with President Joe Biden and NASA officers to unveil the first science-quality images of the James Webb Space Telescope on July 11.
In the meantime, Biden signed the primary NASA authorization invoice in five years, which incorporates language for america to increase its participation within the International Space Station from 2024 to 2030. (The orbiting lab’s different companions should additionally signal on for the extension to occur.)
The bigger Artemis program goals to have a collection of crewed missions to the moon and to assemble a space station orbiting the moon, referred to as Gateway, to open up exploration throughout the solar system within the 2020s and past.
The primary crewed mission can be Artemis 2, which can take a look at life support systems throughout a moon-circling mission anticipated in 2024. If that mission flies on time, Artemis 3 is scheduled to place astronaut boots on the floor in 2025 or 2026.
Elizabeth Howell is the co-author of “Why Am I Taller (opens in new tab)?” (ECW Press, 2022; with Canadian astronaut Dave Williams), a e book about space drugs. Observe her on Twitter @howellspace (opens in new tab). Observe us on Twitter @Spacedotcom (opens in new tab) or Facebook (opens in new tab).
