Good morning and welcome to Kid News. I'm Kim.

Today is Wednesday, December 7, 2022,

and we begin with Orion on its way back home.

The capsule did another close fly-by of the Moon Monday,

skimming at surface from just 81 miles away

before firing its main engine to set up for re-entry and splash down

in the Pacific Ocean near San Diego, California,

at 12.40pm Eastern time Sunday afternoon.

So far, the Artemis-1 mission has been a smashing success,

but the biggest test is yet to come.

NASA needs to see how the capsule's heat shield

protects future astronauts from the 5,000 degree temperature

it will face as it dives back into the Earth's atmosphere

at a speed of 25,000 miles an hour.

Orion will slow considerably before the parachutes deploy,

then hit the water at just 20 miles per hour

to close out what will be a 25-and-a-half-day

history-making voyage that spanned 1.4 million star-studded miles.

A considerably smaller splash will mark the end of an era for Disney.

USA Today reports that after 30 years,

the last watery plunge for Disney World's splash mountain

will take place on January 23.

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