The Artemis II crew safely returned to Earth on Friday, splashing down in the Pacific Ocean as planned after its 10-day journey around the moon and back.
The Artemis II crew safely returned to Earth on Friday, splashing down in the Pacific Ocean as planned after its 10-day journey around the moon and back.
NASA astronauts Reid Wiseman, Victor Glover, Christina Koch, and Canadian Space Agency astronaut Jeremy Hansen splashed down off the coast of San Diego at 8:07 pm ET. They were then transported to a recovery ship, where they underwent medical evaluations.
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Following the mission, the crew is expected to complete an “obstacle course” test to evaluate how well they readjust to Earth’s gravity after time spent in microgravity. They will later travel to Houston to be reunited with their families.
“What a journey. We are stable. Four green crew members,” Artemis II Commander Wiseman said after splashing down.
NASA Administrator Jared Isaacman, who was aboard the USS John P Murtha Navy recovery vessel where the crew was brought after retrieval, praised the mission’s success, saying, “There is a lot to celebrate right now on a mission well accomplished for Artemis II.”
“This is not just an accomplishment for NASA,” he explained. “This is an accomplishment for humanity, again, a historic mission to the moon and back.”
He also applauded the crew, who travelled further in space than any previous mission, calling them “absolutely professional astronauts, wonderful communicators and almost poets” and “ambassadors from humanity to the stars.”
“I can’t imagine a better crew than the Artemis II crew that just completed a perfect mission right now,” Isaacman added. “We are back in the business of sending astronauts to the moon and bringing them back safely. This is just the beginning. We are going to get back into doing this with frequency, sending missions to the moon until we land on it in 2028 and start building our base.”
NASA will also inspect the heat shield on the Orion spacecraft. Divers entered the ocean after splashdown to photograph the heat shield.
“We gathered a lot of data,” said Orion program manager Howard Hu during a press conference. “There’ll be more assessments to get on the ship. We already have two of our heat shield experts on board the ship. And so when we get the crew module into the well deck, we’ll do some inspections, right off the bat.”
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The capsule will also be transported to Kennedy Space Center in Florida for further analysis by engineers.
“We will in the next several days make sure we understand if there’s anything that happened that was anomalous,” Hu added. “But we’re very excited. The team is very excited to get that data from both the imagery and seeing it live in person.”
On Friday evening, President Donald Trump applauded the crew, posting on Truth Social, “Congratulations to the Great and Very Talented Crew of Artemis II. The entire trip was spectacular, the landing was perfect and, as President of the United States, I could not be more proud! I look forward to seeing you all at the White House soon. We’ll be doing it again and then, next step, Mars!”
Looking ahead, NASA plans to increase the number of robotic landers it sends to the moon in 2027, paving the way for a future human landing. Preparations are already underway for Artemis III, which will send a new crew aboard the Orion spacecraft into Earth orbit, where it will dock with a commercial lunar lander being developed by either Elon Musk’s SpaceX or Jeff Bezos’ Blue Origin. NASA could then send humans to the moon as part of its Artemis IV mission in 2028.
Ahead of the Artemis II launch, Commander Wiseman was asked about the long-term legacy of the mission, saying he hopes the crew will ultimately be “forgotten” as space exploration continues to advance.
"When I look at the future, when we talk about what is our legacy, I don’t want to look five years or 10 years in the future. I want to look 100 or 200 years in the future,” he told reporters. “Honestly, this is where I thought it may land wrong: I hope we are forgotten. If we are forgotten, then Artemis has been successful. We have humans on Mars, we have humans on the moons of Saturn, we are expanding in the Solar System. We have robotic precursor missions going on, we have spacecraft. Maybe we invented something we never dreamed of and inspired some kid somewhere; and that is the footnote. 'He went and inspired Susie or Johnny to do what they did.’ That would be magical."
https://twitter.com/NASAArtemis/status/2042977685622734929?s=20
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