Crews in San Diego hauled the capsule on shore Monday night three days after its flawless, unmanned debut test flight around Earth.
(SOUNDBITE) (English) SUNITA WILLIAMS, NASA ASTRONAUT, SAYING:
"This proves a whole lot of different things for us. It's going to give us a whole lot of data to create the next generation of spacecraft, similar to this one, that's going to take humans farther than Earth's orbit. This was a needed stepping stone."
The capsule is designed to one day take astronauts to Mars.
NASA launched Orion from Cape Canaveral, Florida on Friday.
This $375 million flight was to verify that Orion's heat shield, parachutes, avionics and other equipment would work as designed.
The capsule made a near-bullseye splashdown in the Pacific Ocean, where the USS Anchorage picked up the ship and brought it back.
