Artemis II came home on Friday, ending a historic 10-day mission around the Moon with a splashdown in the Pacific Ocean off the coast of California at 8:07pm ET. The Orion module carrying four astronauts landed safely after the first crewed trip to use NASA’s Space Launch System rocket and Orion crew module.
The crew — NASA Commander Reid Wiseman, NASA Pilot Victor Glover, NASA Mission Specialist Christina Koch and Canadian Space Agency Mission Specialist Jeremy Hansen — became the first humans to fly around the Moon in over 50 years. The mission covered 700,237 miles, hit a peak speed of 24,664 m.p.h. and came in within one mile of its target after an entry range of 1,957 miles.
For NASA, the landing was the payoff for a mission built around precision. The agency said safety for the astronauts was maintained by a recovery team assigned to monitor the water, a detail that surfaced after Chasten Buttigieg posted on X, formerly Twitter, asking whether it was anyone’s job to make sure there were no sharks. NASA answered that the recovery teams monitor the area so the only thing greeting the crew is the welcome party.
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The flight also gave NASA the data it wants before sending people back to the Moon again. Rick Henfling said the agency had learned a lot about how to fly people in deep space and how to run a control room for a mission of this kind. He said the next mission is right around the corner, that NASA will take the lessons learned from Artemis II, and that the agency has a core group of about 30 flight directors who are extremely capable.
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That next step is Artemis III, which NASA said is right around the corner. The Artemis II crew did what the agency needed most: prove that the rocket, the capsule and the recovery operation can carry people around the Moon and bring them back within the narrow margins NASA expects. The rest is no longer theory. It is the program’s working blueprint.
