Artemis II returns safely
NASA's Artemis II crew — Christina Koch, Victor Glover Jr., Jeremy Hansen and Reid Wiseman — splashed down as the Orion capsule completed its mission and crew members later made public appearances. The social feeds carried mission wrap coverage and astronaut statements following splashdown. (x.com, x.com)
NASA’s Artemis II crew splashed down in the Pacific Ocean on Friday, April 10, ending the first crewed trip around the Moon since Apollo 17 in 1972. (nasa.gov) NASA said Orion hit the water at 8:07 p.m. Eastern time after a 10-day mission that began with a launch from Kennedy Space Center on April 1. The crew was Reid Wiseman, Victor Glover, Christina Koch and Canadian Space Agency astronaut Jeremy Hansen. (nasa.gov) The capsule returned off the California coast near San Diego, where Navy recovery teams moved in with small boats, attached lines to Orion and brought the spacecraft into a recovery operation at sea. NASA’s splashdown coverage said the ship staged about 1.5 to 2 miles from the landing point. (thehill.com) NASA said the mission covered 694,481 miles and set a new distance mark for human spaceflight, passing the Apollo 13 crew’s 1970 record. The agency said the astronauts later returned to Johnson Space Center in Houston on Saturday, April 11. (nasa.gov) Artemis is NASA’s program to send astronauts back to the Moon using the Space Launch System rocket and the Orion spacecraft. Artemis II was the first flight in that program with people aboard, after Artemis I flew Orion around the Moon without a crew in November and December 2022. (nasa.gov) The flight was a test mission, not a landing mission. NASA used it to check Orion’s life-support systems, navigation, communications and high-speed reentry before Artemis III, the mission NASA says is planned to attempt a lunar landing. (nasa.gov, nasa.gov) The crew also became the first humans to see the Moon’s far side directly since the Apollo era, according to NASA’s post-splashdown briefing. NASA said the mission captured new imagery and engineering data during the lunar flyby and the return through Earth’s atmosphere. (youtube.com, nasa.gov) Public appearances followed the landing as NASA and news outlets carried mission-wrap coverage and astronaut remarks. In its post-splashdown update, NASA called the return a step toward later Artemis flights that would add lunar orbit operations, docking and a landing attempt. (youtube.com, nasa.gov)
