Artemis II splashdown

NASA’s Artemis II crew returned to Earth on Friday, splashing down in the Pacific after a 10-day trip around the Moon. (nasa.gov) NASA said Orion hit the water at 5:07 p.m. Pacific time on April 10, 2026, off the coast of San Diego. The four-person crew was Reid Wiseman, Victor Glover, Christina Koch, and Canadian Space Agency astronaut Jeremy Hansen. (nasa.gov) The mission launched from Kennedy Space Center in Florida at 6:35 p.m. Eastern time on April 1 and lasted 9 days, 1 hour, and 32 minutes. NASA’s Artemis II mission page lists it as the first crewed lunar flyby in more than 50 years. (nasa.gov 1) (nasa.gov 2) A lunar flyby is a trip that loops around the Moon without landing, using the Moon’s gravity to swing the spacecraft back toward Earth. Artemis II was the first time NASA put astronauts aboard Orion, the capsule built for deep-space missions beyond low Earth orbit. (nasa.gov 1) (nasa.gov 2) During the flight, the crew set a new distance record for human spaceflight. NASA said Artemis II reached 248,655 miles from Earth on April 6, passing the Apollo 13 mark from 1970, and later got as far as 252,756 miles from Earth. (nasa.gov 1) (nasa.gov 2) NASA flew Artemis II as a test of the Space Launch System rocket, Orion spacecraft, communications, navigation, life-support hardware, and recovery operations with astronauts on board. The agency’s press kit said the mission was designed to prove those systems before later Artemis flights aimed at lunar surface missions. (nasa.gov) Before re-entry, Orion fired its engines for a final burn at 2:53 p.m. Eastern time on April 10. NASA said that 8-second burn changed the spacecraft’s speed by 4.2 feet per second and put it on the path to splashdown. (nasa.gov) After splashdown, recovery teams brought the spacecraft and crew aboard the USS John P. Murtha for medical checks before a flight back to Houston. NASA’s mission page and live updates said the astronauts then returned to Johnson Space Center and reunited with their families. (nasa.gov) (nasa.gov) Artemis II followed the uncrewed Artemis I flight and now closes with the crew back at Johnson Space Center, where NASA is preparing for the next steps in its Moon program. (nasa.gov) (nasa.gov)