Artemis II Homecoming

The Artemis II crew is back on Earth after a 10-day trip around the Moon, splashing down in the Pacific on April 10. (nasa.gov) NASA said Orion landed near San Diego, California, at 5:07 p.m. Pacific time, carrying commander Reid Wiseman, pilot Victor Glover, mission specialist Christina Koch, and Canadian Space Agency astronaut Jeremy Hansen. (nasa.gov) Recovery video released by NASA showed the astronauts hugging family members on the flight deck after they were brought aboard the recovery ship. Fox News footage from the deck showed Glover thanking God and Wiseman wiping away tears during the reunion. (nasa.gov) (foxnews.com) Artemis II was NASA’s first crewed lunar flyby since Apollo 17 in December 1972, and the agency describes it as a test flight for its deep-space systems before later Moon landing missions. NASA lists the mission duration at 9 days, 1 hour, and 32 minutes. (nasa.gov) The mission also set a new distance mark for human spaceflight. NASA said the crew reached 248,655 miles from Earth on April 6, passing the record set by Apollo 13 in 1970. (nasa.gov 1) (nasa.gov 2) NASA launched Artemis II on April 1 from Kennedy Space Center in Florida aboard the Space Launch System rocket, sending Orion on a loop around the far side of the Moon and back without landing. (nasa.gov 1) (nasa.gov 2) During the return leg, the crew carried a zero-gravity indicator named Rise, a plush dog that floated inside the capsule to signal when Orion had reached weightlessness. NASA published images of Rise with the crew on April 7, and post-splashdown video showed the mascot crossing the deck during the reunion. (nasa.gov) (x.com) NASA’s Artemis program is aimed at returning astronauts to the Moon and using those missions to prepare for later flights deeper into space. Artemis II now closes with the images NASA highlighted most after splashdown: four astronauts home, families waiting, and a long Moon mission ending on a ship’s deck. (nasa.gov 1) (nasa.gov 2)