- Four astronauts flew further from Earth than anyone before.
- The mission marked the first human trip to the Moon in half a century.
- Re-entry into the atmosphere posed a key test for the capsule’s heat shield.
The Artemis II capsule and its four-member crew passed through Earth’s atmosphere and landed safely in the Pacific Ocean on Friday after nearly 10 days in space, capping the first trip by humans to the vicinity of the Moon in more than half a century.
NASA’s gumdrop-shaped Orion capsule, named Integrity, gently parachuted into the sea off the coast of Southern California shortly after 5 p.m. Pacific Time, concluding a mission that took astronauts deeper into space than anyone had flown before.
The Artemis II flight, which traveled a total of 694,392 miles (1,117,515 km) through two Earth orbits and a culminating lunar flyby about 252,000 miles away, was the first crewed test flight in a series of Artemis missions that aim to begin landing astronauts on the lunar surface starting in 2028.
The landing, about two hours before sunset, was broadcast by live video on a NASA webcast.
Recovery teams were ready to secure the floating capsule and recover the crew: American astronauts Reid Wiseman, 50, Victor Glover, 49, and Christina Koch, 47, along with Canadian astronaut Jeremy Hansen, 50.
The crew’s return home cleared a final critical hurdle for the Lockheed Martin-built Orion spacecraft, demonstrating that it would withstand the extreme forces of reentry from a lunar return trajectory.
A fierce 13-minute dive through Earth’s atmosphere followed, generating frictional heat that raised temperatures outside the capsule to about 5,000 degrees Fahrenheit (2,760 degrees Celsius).
At the peak of reentry stress, as expected, the intense heat and compression of the air formed a red-hot layer of ionized gas, or plasma, that enveloped the capsule, cutting off radio communications with the crew for several minutes.
The tension was broken when contact was restored and two sets of parachutes were seen flapping from the tip of the free-falling capsule, slowing its descent to about 15 mph (25 kph) before Orion gently hit the water.
NASA and U.S. Navy teams were expected to take about an hour to secure the floating capsule and help the four astronauts exit the vehicle and take them to a nearby recovery ship for an initial medical checkup.
A springboard to Mars
The quartet lifted off from Cape Canaveral, Florida, on April 1, entering an initial Earth orbit via NASA’s giant Space Launch System rocket before embarking on a rare journey around the far side of the Moon.
In doing so, they became the first astronauts to fly near Earth’s only natural satellite since the Apollo program of the 1960s and 1970s. Glover, Koch and Hansen also made history as the first black astronaut, the first woman and the first non-U.S. citizen, respectively, to participate in a lunar mission.
At the peak of the flight, the Artemis astronauts reached a point 400,000 kilometers from Earth, surpassing the previous record of approximately 400,000 kilometers set in 1970 by the Apollo 13 crew.
The trip, which followed the unmanned Artemis I test flight around the moon by the Orion spacecraft in 2022, marked a critical dress rehearsal for an attempt planned later this decade to land astronauts on the lunar surface for the first time since Apollo 17 in late 1972.
The ultimate goal of the Artemis program is to establish a long-term presence on the Moon as a springboard for eventual human exploration of Mars.
In a historical parallel to the Cold War-era Apollo, the Artemis II mission has unfolded against a backdrop of political and social upheaval, including a US military conflict that has proven unpopular at home.
Unlike the Apollo era, when the United States raced to land astronauts on the moon before the Soviet Union, the Artemis program seeks to beat China.
For many in a global audience captivated by the latest trip to the moon, it reaffirmed the achievements of science and technology at a time when Big Tech has become widely distrusted, even feared. Opinion polls showed broad public support for the mission’s objectives.
The return to Earth subjected the Orion spacecraft to a critical test of its heat shield, which suffered an unexpected level of scorching and stress upon reentry during its 2022 test flight. As a result, NASA engineers altered Artemis II’s descent trajectory to reduce heat buildup and decrease the risk of the capsule burning up.
Last week’s successful launch was a major milestone for the SLS rocket, providing its prime contractors, Boeing and Northrop Grumman, with long-sought validation that the launch system, which has been more than a decade in development, was ready to safely carry humans to space.
