Reid Wiseman and three other astronauts splashed down in the Pacific Ocean off the coast of San Diego on April 10, ending Artemis II after a nearly 10-day voyage around the Moon. The crew’s return capped the first crewed flight of NASA’s Orion spacecraft and brought home a mission that traveled farther from Earth than any humans before them.
At their farthest point, Wiseman, Victor Glover, Christina Koch and Jeremy Hansen were 252,756 miles from Earth, setting a record for the greatest distance humans have traveled in space. The crew came down inside Orion and was secured by recovery teams from NASA and the U.S. Navy, who opened the hatch, helped the astronauts out and flew them by helicopter to the Navy recovery ship before Orion was brought aboard for transport back to shore.
The voyage was built on years of preparation. Before launch, the crew trained in Iceland’s volcanic terrain, practicing navigation and field geology in rough conditions and collecting rock samples with hammers, scoops and chisels. They also trained extensively in NASA’s Orion Crew Survival System, the bright orange spacesuit worn inside Orion during launch and re-entry. Each suit was custom-fitted and carried systems for air, water, food and waste management, with the ability to sustain life for up to six days in an emergency.
The splashdown closes the Artemis II chapter and advances NASA’s plan to send astronauts on increasingly complex missions to the Moon as preparation for future human missions to Mars. What Wiseman and his crewmates proved is not just that Orion can carry people around the Moon, but that NASA can bring them home from the far side of a new era in spaceflight.