Artemis II splashes down
The Artemis II crew—Koch, Glover, Hansen and Wiseman—successfully splashed down after reentry. Coverage noted the crew's public comments at splashdown, including calls for broader public engagement, in post‑landing reporting (x.com; x.com).
NASA’s Artemis II crew splashed down in the Pacific Ocean off San Diego on Friday, April 10, ending humanity’s first crewed trip around the Moon since Apollo. (nasa.gov) NASA said Orion hit the water at 5:07 p.m. Pacific time, or 8:07 p.m. Eastern, after a nearly 10-day mission. The crew was Commander Reid Wiseman, Pilot Victor Glover, Mission Specialist Christina Koch, and Canadian Space Agency astronaut Jeremy Hansen. (nasa.gov) The capsule, named Integrity, returned through Earth’s atmosphere before recovery teams moved in by helicopter and ship. NASA had said before landing that the crew would be taken to the USS John P. Murtha after splashdown. (nasa.gov) Artemis II was a test flight, not a Moon landing. Its job was to send astronauts around the Moon and back in Orion so NASA could check the spacecraft, life-support systems, and ground operations before later landing missions. (nasa.gov) The mission also reset the calendar for deep-space human flight. NASA called the crew the first astronauts to travel to the Moon in more than half a century, and said they reached 252,756 miles from Earth at their farthest point. (nasa.gov) Earlier in the flight, NASA said the four astronauts passed the previous record for the farthest distance humans had traveled from Earth, a mark set by Apollo 13 in 1970. NASA dated that milestone to Monday, April 6, six days into the mission. (nasa.gov) NASA’s live reentry updates showed Orion descending under parachutes before landing off the California coast. Post-landing coverage showed the astronauts waving after exit and reporting that they felt good after recovery. (nasa.gov; astronomy.com) At splashdown and after recovery, public remarks from the crew emphasized outreach as well as flight operations. Social video posted after landing showed calls to bring more people into the mission and keep public attention on the return to the Moon. (x.com; x.com) NASA launched Artemis II on Wednesday, April 1, from Kennedy Space Center, and the flight closed with the same basic goal the agency set at liftoff: prove Orion and its systems with people aboard before the next steps in the Artemis program. Friday’s splashdown delivered that ending in the water, not on the Moon, but with the crew home. (nasa.gov; nasa.gov)
