NASA's Orion capsule made a blisteringly fast return from the moon Sunday, parachuting into the Pacific off Mexico to conclude a test flight that should clear the way for astronauts on the next lunar flyby.

The incoming capsule hit the atmosphere at Mach 32, or 32 times the speed of sound, and endured reentry temperatures of 5,000 degrees Fahrenheit (2,760 degrees Celsius) before splashing down west of Baja California near Guadalupe Island. A Navy ship quickly moved in to recover the spacecraft and its silent occupants — three test dummies rigged with vibration sensors and radiation monitors.

Three Chinese astronauts docked early Wednesday with their country's space station, where they will overlap for several days with the three-member crew already onboard and expand the facility to its maximum size.

Docking with the Tiangong station came at 5:42 a.m. Wednesday, about 6 1/2 hours after the Shenzhou-15 spaceship blasted off atop a Long March-2F carrier rocket from the Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center.

A rocket carrying three astronauts to finish building China's space station will blast off Tuesday amid intensifying competition with the U.S., the government said Monday.

The crew includes a veteran of a 2005 space mission and two first-time astronauts, according to the China Manned Space Agency.

NASA's Orion capsule reached the moon Monday, whipping around the back side and passing within 80 miles (128 kilometers) on its way to a record-breaking lunar orbit.

The close approach occurred as the crew capsule and its three test dummies were on the far side of the moon. Because of the half-hour communication blackout, flight controllers in Houston did not know if the critical engine firing went well until the capsule emerged from behind the moon, more than 232,000 miles (375,000 kilometers) from Earth.

NASA's new moon rocket blasted off on its debut flight with three test dummies aboard early Wednesday, bringing the U.S. a big step closer to putting astronauts back on the lunar surface for the first time since the end of the Apollo program 50 years ago.

If all goes well during the three-week, make-or-break shakedown flight, the rocket will propel an empty crew capsule into a wide orbit around the moon, and then the capsule will return to Earth with a splashdown in the Pacific in December.

Facebook parent Meta is laying off 11,000 people, about 13% of its workforce, as it contends with faltering revenue and broader tech industry woes, CEO Mark Zuckerberg said in a letter to employees Wednesday.

The job cuts come just a week after widespread layoffs at Twitter under its new owner, billionaire Elon Musk. There have been numerous job cuts at other tech companies that hired rapidly during the pandemic.

Elon Musk tweeted Sunday that Twitter will permanently suspend any account on the social media platform that impersonates another.

The platform's new owner issued the warning after some celebrities changed their Twitter display names — not their account names — and tweeted as 'Elon Musk' in reaction to the billionaire's decision to offer verified accounts to all comers for $8 month as he simultaneously laid off a big chunk of the workforce.

The European Union threatened Monday to take retaliatory measures against the United States for electric car subsidies that favor domestic manufacturers.

Apple Inc. is warning customers they'll have to wait longer to get its latest iPhone models after anti-virus restrictions were imposed on a contractor's factory in central China.

The company announcement Sunday gave no details but said the factory operated by Foxconn in the central city of Zhengzhou is "operating at significantly reduced capacity."

China on Monday launched the third and final module to complete its permanent space station and realize a more than decade-long effort to maintain a constant crewed presence in orbit, as its competition with the U.S. grows increasingly fierce.

Mengtian was blasted into space on Monday afternoon from the Wenchang Satellite Launch Center on the southern island province of Hainan.