The San Diego Air & Space Museum, in collaboration with NASA, hosted a special watch party for invited community guests of the splashdown of NASA’s Orion spacecraft on Sunday, Dec. 11.

San Diego City College student Shalayah-Naomi Webb emceed the event and shared her enthusiasm for STEM learning.,

Two experts from NASA -- Kamak Edadi, Robotics Technologist and Orbital Image Analysis, Jet Propulsion Laboratory, and Nujoud Merancy, Chief, Exploration Mission Planning Office at NASA JSC -- spoke to the crowd of more than 400 invited guests, which included Girl Scouts, Boy Scouts, students from the San Diego Unified School District, the museum’s camps and the US Navy supported STEM programs, families of the military personnel participating the Orion capsule recovery as well as in the Million Girls Moonshot,. Edadi and Merancy explained the significance of the Artemis program and NASA’s future missions to send astronauts back to the Moon and beyond.

Dr. Cindy Marten, Deputy Secretary of the US Department of Education, also addressed the invited guests and shared the importance of learning science, technology engineering and math as the world now lives in the Artemis age. Congressman Scott Peters was also one of the honored guest.

“Today’s Orion Spacecraft of the Artemis I Mission splashdown is a remarkable next step in human, deep space exploration,” said Jim Kidrick, President & CEO of the San Diego Air & Space Museum. “Artemis I is the first step in an epic journey to return astronauts to the Moon’s surface. The splashdown party was a truly historic and inspirational event like no other. Not since the Apollo program, 50 years ago have we experienced such excitement.”

After the splashdown, guests were treated to several family-friendly activities, including stomp rockets, a space-themed scavenger hunt, NASA STEM Engagement resources and an appearance by Snoopy, who played a unique role in the Artemis I mission as the zero gravity indicator.

The Museum plans to host similar splashdown viewing parties during future missions during the Artemis program, which plans to send astronauts to the Moon in 2024 before landing men and women on the lunar surface in 2025 or early 2026.