The era of deep space exploration reached a major milestone Friday evening as the four-man crew of NASA’s Artemis II mission safely returned to Earth.
The Orion capsule hit the waters of the Pacific Ocean at 8:07 p.m. ET, landing about 40 to 50 miles off the coast of San Diego after a nine-day journey that pushed human travel further into the cosmos than ever before.
Onboard the spacecraft were commander Reid Wiseman, pilot Victor Glover, mission specialist Christina Koch, and Canadian astronaut Jeremy Hansen.
Shortly after landing, Mission Control described the event as a “perfect bullseye splashdown,” noting that the descent was exactly what the team had hoped for. Wiseman radioed back to the ground that all four crew members were in good health following their high-speed return.
The final leg of the journey was a test of engineering and endurance. To prepare for reentry, the crew donned their orange Orion Crew Survival System suits and watched as the crew module separated from the service module at 7:33 p.m.
READ: Far Side First Look: Artemis II Crew Captures Rare Solar Eclipse And Unseen Lunar Vistas
The capsule then hit the atmosphere at nearly 24,700 mph, just shy of the all-time speed record set by Apollo 10 in 1969. During this phase, the heat shield endured temperatures of 5,000 degrees Fahrenheit, causing a six-minute communication blackout as plasma surrounded the craft.
As the capsule slowed from 300 mph to a gentle 18 mph, a series of parachutes deployed, beginning with the drogues at 22,000 feet and finishing with the three main chutes at 6,000 feet. NASA commentator Faris Tanyos noted during the broadcast, “This is a perfect descent,” as the capsule drifted toward the ocean surface.
The mission, which lasted 9 days, 1 hour, and 31 minutes, saw the crew travel a total distance of approximately 694,481 miles. They set a new record for the farthest distance humans have ever been from Earth, reaching 252,756 miles away during their loop around the moon.
While the world watched, President Trump followed the landing from a fundraiser at a winery in Virginia, where a television was brought into a roundtable dinner so he could view the splashdown.
With the capsule now in the water, Navy recovery teams are working to transport the astronauts to the USS John P. Murtha. There, they will undergo routine medical evaluations before being transported via helicopter back to the mainland. The success of this mission clears a path for the next phase of the Artemis program, which aims to return humans to the lunar surface.
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