NASA's Orion capsule heads for splashdown
NASA's uncrewed Orion capsule hurtled through space on Sunday on the final return leg of its voyage around the moon and back, winding up the inaugural mission of the Artemis lunar programme 50 years to the day after Apollo's final moon landing. The gumdrop-shaped Orion capsule , carrying a simulated crew of three mannequins wired with sensors, was due to parachute into the Pacific at 9:39am PST (1739 GMT) near Guadalupe Island, off Mexico's Baja California peninsula. Orion was nearing the end of its 25-day mission less than a week after passing about 79 miles (127 km) above the moon in a lunar fly-by and about two weeks after reaching its farthest point in space, nearly 270,000 miles (434,500 km) from Earth. After jettisoning the service module housing its main rocket system, the capsule was expected to re-enter Earth's atmosphere at 24,500 miles per hour (39,400 kph) - more than 30 times the speed of sound - for a fiery, 20-minute plunge to the ocean. Orion blast...