Cheers erupt at Colorado viewing party to watch Artemis spacecraft splashdown

On Sunday, engineers, experts and community members, all patiently waited for NASA's Artemis I Orion spacecraft to splash down to Earth. A viewing party was held for students and the community at SkyView Academy in Highlands Ranch.

10-year-old Gabi Wolfson eagerly waited to see the landing. Her mom and dad are employees at Lockheed Martin in Colorado. They've both been working on the Artemis I mission for about 15 years.

"I think it's really cool. I wish there were people on it, I feel like it would be really cool to see the astronauts come out of the capsule," Wolfson said. "I think it's really cool that my parents work on it, and a lot of the time, they'll come and talk to my class about what they do." 

At least 560 Colorado engineers helped build the Artemis spacecraft, like its design, and helping with its heat shield.

"As it's coming into the Earth's atmosphere, it's going about 25,000 miles per hour, that heat shield, that slows it down to 20 miles per hour upon retry, that was designed and built here in Colorado," said Tonya Ladwig, the vice president of human space exploration for the Orion and program manager at Lockheed Martin.

Ladwig said this mission is the first step to getting humans back to the moon, and parts of the Artemis 1 spacecraft are also going to be used in the future Artemis II mission.

"So now we're getting ready to get this spacecraft back, that's going to be the first human radio spacecraft to take astronauts into deep space and be near the lunar orbit in over 50 years," she said.

And after 25 and a half days, as anticipation built in the school gymnasium, at 10:40 MST, a successful splashdown off the coast of San Diego on Sunday, marking the end of the years-long Artemis 1 mission.

"We're going back to the moon and we're going to have a presence there like we haven't before," Ludwig said. "And we're going to go to Mars."