Artemis II astronauts splash down, concluding historic 10-day moon mission

After nearly 10 days in space, the Artemis II capsule carrying four astronauts tore back through Earth’s atmosphere and splashed down safely in the Pacific Ocean, closing out humanity’s first journey into the moon’s neighborhood in more than 50 years.

NASA’s gumdrop-shaped Orion capsule, named Integrity, drifted under parachutes into the ocean off Southern California shortly after 5pm PT (1am Irish time), bringing to an end a mission that carried its crew farther into space than any people had traveled before.

Covering 1,117,515 km across two Earth orbits and a dramatic lunar flyby about 252,000 miles out, Artemis II served as the first crewed test flight in NASA’s Artemis campaign, a program intended to begin returning astronauts to the moon’s surface from 2028.

Watch: Artemis II splashes down after historic moon mission

The splashdown, broadcast live on a NASA webcast about two hours before sunset, marked the mission’s final and most closely watched moment.

Recovery crews were on station to secure the floating spacecraft and bring out the astronauts – US crew members Reid Wiseman, 50, Victor Glover, 49, and Christina Koch, 47, along with Canadian astronaut Jeremy Hansen, 50.

The crew’s return cleared a decisive last test for the Lockheed Martin-built Orion spacecraft, demonstrating that it could survive the punishing forces of re-entry from a lunar-return path.

That test came during a harrowing 13-minute plunge through the atmosphere, when friction drove temperatures on the capsule’s exterior to about 2,760 degrees Celsius.

At the height of re-entry, just as mission planners had anticipated, extreme heat and compressed air created a red-hot layer of ionized gas, or plasma, around the capsule, cutting radio contact with the astronauts for several minutes.

Relief came when communications resumed and two sets of parachutes unfurled from the nose of the falling capsule, slowing Orion to roughly 15 mph (25kph) before it settled gently onto the water.

Cheers erupted at the San Diego Air and Space Museum as the Artemis II capsule returned to Earth

NASA and US Navy teams were expected to spend about an hour securing the capsule in the water, helping the four astronauts out of the vehicle and flying them to a nearby recovery ship for an initial medical checkup.

Stepping stone to Mars

The four astronauts launched from Cape Canaveral, Florida, on 1 April, riding NASA’s giant Space Launch System rocket into an initial Earth orbit before heading onward on a rare mission around the far side of the moon.

In doing so, they became the first astronauts to fly near Earth’s only natural satellite since the Apollo era of the 1960s and 1970s.

Mr Glover, Ms Koch and Mr Hansen also entered the history books as the first Black astronaut, the first woman and the first non-US citizen, respectively, to join a lunar mission.

At the furthest point of the flight, the Artemis astronauts reached 252,756 miles from Earth, surpassing the previous mark of about 248,000 miles set in 1970 by the crew of Apollo 13.

The mission followed the uncrewed Artemis I Orion flight around the moon in 2022 and amounted to a crucial dress rehearsal for a planned landing later this decade that would place astronauts on the lunar surface for the first time since Apollo 17 in late 1972.

Artemis II carried humans farther from Earth than ever before

The broader ambition of the Artemis program is to build a sustained human presence on the moon as a staging ground for eventual crewed missions to Mars.

In an echo of the Cold War backdrop that shaped Apollo, Artemis II unfolded during a period of political and social upheaval, including a US military conflict that has proved unpopular domestically.

But unlike Apollo, when the United States was locked in a race with the Soviet Union to reach the moon first, Artemis is now aimed at staying ahead of China.

For many watching around the world, the latest moonshot served as a reminder of what science and technology can accomplish at a moment when big tech is often met with distrust, and even fear.

Opinion polling indicated that the mission’s goals enjoyed broad public backing.

The journey home also put Orion’s heat shield through a vital examination after the spacecraft experienced more scorching and stress than expected during re-entry on its 2022 test flight.

In response, NASA engineers adjusted the descent profile for Artemis II to limit heat buildup and reduce the danger of the capsule burning up.

Last week’s successful launch also marked a major step for the SLS rocket, giving its main contractors, Boeing and Northrop Grumman, long-awaited proof that the launch system, after more than a decade in development, was ready to carry humans safely into space.