Historic Return of Artemis II Astronauts from Moon Mission
At 8:07 p.m. EDT on Friday, April 10, 2026, four astronauts made a successful splashdown in the Pacific Ocean off San Diego. This marked the conclusion of NASA’s Artemis II mission—the first crewed journey beyond low Earth orbit in over half a century. The ten-day lunar flyby mission not only marked humanity’s return to deep space exploration but also set a new distance record for human spaceflight.
The crew, consisting of NASA astronauts Reid Wiseman, Victor Glover, Christina Koch, and Canadian Space Agency astronaut Jeremy Hansen, traveled an impressive 248,655 miles from Earth during their lunar flyby on April 6. This surpassed the distance record previously set by Apollo 13 in 1970. Aboard the Orion spacecraft, named Integrity, they completed critical tests of life support systems, navigation, and manual piloting procedures—essential for future missions to the lunar surface.
One of the mission’s most challenging moments occurred during re-entry. The Orion capsule plunged through Earth’s atmosphere at approximately 24,661 miles per hour, experiencing temperatures reaching 5,000 degrees Fahrenheit. Despite using a heat shield with known flaws from the previous uncrewed Artemis I mission, the spacecraft splashed down successfully with all four crew members in excellent condition. “What a journey. We are stable. Four green crewmembers,” reported Commander Wiseman upon landing.
Recovery teams, using helicopters, extracted the astronauts from the capsule within two hours. They were then transported to the USS John P. Murtha for medical evaluations. The crew captured stunning imagery during the mission, including an Earthset view from the Moon and a 54-minute solar eclipse visible only from their unique vantage point. Artemis II has paved the way for Artemis III, which is set to land astronauts on the lunar surface in 2027.
Source: NASA