Artemis II Astronauts Return Safely to Earth
The four-person crew of the Artemis II mission flew through Earth’s atmosphere and landed safely in the Pacific Ocean on Friday after nearly 10 days in space. The flight marked the first human journey to the vicinity of the Moon in more than half a century.
The crew consisted of US astronauts Victor Glover, Christina Koch and Reid Wiseman, as well as Canadian astronaut Jeremy Hansen.
NASA’s teardrop-shaped Orion capsule drifted down under parachutes into waters off the coast of southern California shortly after 5.07 pm Pacific time (2.07 am on Saturday).
Four days earlier, the mission had taken the astronauts to within 406,771 km of Earth, farther into space than humans have previously travelled.
The Artemis II flight covered a total distance of 1,117,515 km in two orbits around Earth and a flyby of the Moon at a distance of about 6,437 km from its surface. It was the first crewed test flight in the Artemis series, which aims to return astronauts to the lunar surface in 2028.
Donald Trump congratulated the astronauts on their return on his Truth Social platform: “The entire trip was spectacular, the landing was perfect and, as President of the United States, I could not be more proud!”