Artemis II back on Earth
NASA celebrated the safe return of the Artemis II crew after a nearly 10‑day trip circling the Moon — the post recording the milestone earned about 201,000 likes, 33,000 reposts and 4.9 million views. (x.com)
NASA’s Artemis II crew splashed down in the Pacific on April 10, ending the first crewed trip around the Moon in more than 50 years. (nasa.gov) NASA said the Orion spacecraft carrying Reid Wiseman, Victor Glover, Christina Koch and Canadian Space Agency astronaut Jeremy Hansen landed at 5:07 p.m. Pacific time off the California coast after a mission lasting 9 days, 1 hour and 32 minutes. (nasa.gov) The mission launched on April 1 from Kennedy Space Center in Florida atop the Space Launch System rocket, with Orion flying a lunar flyby rather than entering orbit around the Moon. (nasa.gov) A lunar flyby is a loop that uses the Moon’s gravity like a slingshot: the spacecraft swings around the far side and heads back to Earth without landing. Artemis II was the first crewed test of that system, including Orion’s life support, navigation and reentry hardware. (nasa.gov) NASA is using Artemis II to prove the capsule, rocket and ground systems can carry people safely beyond low Earth orbit before later missions attempt lunar landings. The agency says Artemis III is planned as the first crewed landing mission in the program. (nasa.gov) The flight also reset a human-distance mark. NASA said the crew reached 248,655 miles from Earth on April 6, passing the farthest distance traveled by astronauts on Apollo 13 in 1970. (nasa.gov) Artemis is NASA’s Moon program built around the Orion spacecraft and the Space Launch System rocket, with commercial partners expected to provide later lunar landers and cargo services. NASA says the campaign is meant to establish longer-term operations near and on the Moon as a step toward Mars missions. (nasa.gov) Recovery teams from NASA and the United States military pulled the crew from Orion after splashdown and took them to the amphibious transport dock ship USS John P. Murtha. NASA said the astronauts then returned to Johnson Space Center in Houston and reunited with their families. (nasa.gov, nasa.gov) The mission closed with the same test NASA needed at the start: bring four astronauts home through high-speed reentry after a trip to the Moon and back. On April 10, Orion did that. (nasa.gov)
