Artemis II splashdown update
NASA confirmed the Artemis II crew splashed down safely on April 11 after a 10‑day mission that took them around the Moon — the farthest humans have traveled in years (x.com). The splashdown post drew large public attention on social media, with NASA’s announcement racking up tens of thousands of interactions and millions of views (x.com).
NASA’s Artemis II crew returned to Earth on Friday, April 10, splashing down in the Pacific Ocean off California after a lunar flyby test flight. (nasa.gov) Orion hit the water at 5:07 p.m. Pacific time, or 8:07 p.m. Eastern, near San Diego after launching on April 1 from Kennedy Space Center in Florida. The four-person crew was Reid Wiseman, Victor Glover, Christina Koch, and Canadian Space Agency astronaut Jeremy Hansen. (nasa.gov) NASA said the mission lasted 10 days and sent astronauts around the Moon and back without landing. The agency called it the first crewed lunar flyby in more than 50 years. (nasa.gov) A lunar flyby is a loop around the Moon that uses the Moon’s gravity to bend a spacecraft back toward Earth. Artemis II was the first time NASA flew astronauts on the Space Launch System rocket and Orion spacecraft together in deep space. (nasa.gov) The flight also reset a distance mark from the Apollo era. NASA said the crew reached 248,655 miles from Earth on April 6, passing the farthest distance traveled by humans, a record set during Apollo 13 in 1970. (nasa.gov) NASA has been using Artemis missions to test hardware before trying a crewed Moon landing later in the program. Artemis I flew Orion around the Moon without astronauts in 2022, and Artemis II added a crew to the same basic mission profile. (nasa.gov) Recovery teams from NASA, the United States Navy, and the United States Air Force moved to secure Orion after splashdown and bring the spacecraft aboard USS John P. Murtha. NASA’s live re-entry updates said the capsule returned under parachutes before crews began post-landing operations. (nasa.gov) The crew is now back in Houston after the mission, according to NASA’s Artemis II mission page. The safe return closes the first human trip around the Moon since the Apollo program and moves NASA to its next Artemis milestones. (nasa.gov)
