after its last mission to the moon with apollo 17. this phase of the partmous program was a critical unmanned test flight which could pave the way for astronauts to return to the lunar surface and beyond. cnn s kristen fisher has more on the mission and what lies ahead. reporter: a textbook splashdown of the arien capsule in the pacific ocean this afternoon ending a successful artemis 1 mission and happened on such a historic day, of the 50th an verse of the apollo 17 mission. those astronauts landing on the moon. now nasa trying to do it again but all starts with this first uncrewed test flight. and so what we saw today was this orion spacecraft barrelling through the earth s atmosphere at about 25,000 miles per hour, hitting temperatures of about