Home at last. NASA’s Orion spacecraft successfully completed a parachute-assisted splashdown in the Pacific Ocean west of Baja California at 12:40 p.m. EST (17:40 UTC) on Dec. 11 as the final major milestone of the #Artemis I mission. Following Orion’s successful splashdown, @NASAJohnson flight controllers in mission control spent about two hours performing tests in open water to gather additional data about the spacecraft. These tests included investigating Orion’s thermal properties after enduring the searing heat of re-entry through Earth’s atmosphere. Recovery personnel also spent time collecting detailed imagery of the spacecraft before beginning to pull the capsule into the USS Portland’s well deck. The ship will soon begin its trip back to U.S. Naval Base San Diego, where engineers will remove Orion from the ship in preparation for transport back to @NASAKennedy Space Center in Florida for post-flight analysis. Orion is expected to arrive to shore Dec. 13 with offload expect...