The four astronauts of the mission Artemis II They landed this Friday in the Pacific Oceanoff the coast of San Diego, after completing the furthest journey of human beings in more than half a century. The return marked the end of a historic mission and the beginning of the countdown to the first moon landing since 1972.
The capsule Orion —baptized by the crew as Integrity («Integrity»)—hit the water at 8:07 p.m. local time (9:07 p.m. Argentina time). NASA astronauts were on board. Reid Wiseman, Victor Glover y Christina Kochalong with the astronaut from the Canadian Space Agency (CSA), Jeremy Hansen.
After landinga combined team of the NASA and the United States Armed Forces assisted them in the water and transferred them by helicopter to the ship USS John P. Murtha, where they received the first medical checks. The crew is expected to return to Johnson Space Center from Houston on Saturday.
During the almost ten days of missionthe crew traveled a total of 694,481 miles (more than 1.1 million kilometers) and traveled as far as 252,756 miles from Earth at its most distant point. With that brand, Artemis II surpassed the distance record set by the Apollo 13 astronauts in 1970which for more than five decades was the unreached milestone of human space exploration.
The mission had its starting point on April 1when the SLS (Space Launch System) rocket took off at 6:35 in the afternoon from Launch Pad 39B of the Kennedy Space Center in Florida. With 8.8 million pounds of thrust, the rocket — the most powerful built in the United States — placed the Orion capsule into orbit with pinpoint precision.
It was the first manned flight of the SLS, a detail that NASA highlighted as a risk consciously assumed by the crew for the benefit of scientific knowledge.
NASA Administrator Jared Isaacmancelebrated the return with a statement in which he highlighted the historical scope of the achievement. «Reid, Victor, Christina and Jeremy, welcome home and congratulations on a truly historic achievement,» he said.
«Artemis II demonstrated extraordinary skill, bravery and dedication as the crew took Orion, SLS and human exploration further than ever before.. As the first astronauts to fly this rocket and spacecraft, the crew accepted significant risk in service of the knowledge gained and the future we are determined to build,» Isaacman added.
Artemis II breaks distance record in space exploration
The mission climaxed on April 6, when the spacecraft completed the lunar flyby. At its closest moment, Orion passed within 4,067 miles (approximately 6,545 kilometers) of the Moon’s surface. From that privileged position, the crew captured more than 7,000 images of the lunar terrain: impact craters, ancient lava flows, surface fractures, color variations in the ground, and views of the Milky Way. They also recorded a solar eclipse observed from the perspective of the spacecraft, with the Moon interposed between Orion and the Sun.
Photographic documentation had a specific strategic purpose. The crew recorded topography along the lunar terminator —the line that separates day from night on the surface—where grazing sunlight casts long shadows on the ground.
These lighting conditions are similar to those that astronauts will find in the South Pole region, the planned destination for the first moon landing of the program in 2028. Additionally, astronauts proposed names for two lunar craters and reported glimpses of meteorite impacts on the night side of the Moon.
In addition to flight testing, the crew conducted scientific research designed to prepare future astronauts to live and work on the Moon. Among them, the research AVATARwhich studies how human tissue responds to microgravity and deep space radiation.
The mission also evaluated Orion’s life support systems, crew survival spacesuits, emergency procedures and other critical systems. The astronauts took manual control of the spacecraft in several piloting demonstrations, with the goal of validating its maneuverability and collecting data that will guide future docking operations.
NASA Associate Administrator Amit Kshatriyasummarized the collective significance of the mission: «This moment belongs to the thousands of people from fourteen countries who built, tested and trusted this vehicle. Their work protected four human lives traveling at 25,000 miles per hour and brought them back to Earth safely.»
Kshatriya added that the mission «demonstrated the vehicle, equipment, architecture and international partnership that will return humanity to the lunar surface.» And he concluded: «Fifty-three years ago, humanity left the Moon. This time, we came back to stay.»
Artemis III and IV: NASA’s plan to set foot on the Moon again in 2028
With the crew now on the ground, the US space agency’s attention shifts to the next stage of the program. The Artemis III mission, scheduled for 2027, does not contemplate a lunar landing.
It will be a mission in low Earth orbit aimed at rehearsing rendezvous and docking operations between the Orion spacecraft and commercial landers. Vehicles developed by SpaceX y Blue Originthe two private companies selected by NASA to build the lunar landing systems (Human Landing Systems). The test may be carried out with one or both providers, depending on the progress of their respective developments.
The choice of the final design of the mission and its crew will be announced closer to the launch date. What NASA confirmed is that The main objective of Artemis III will be to validate the docking between Orion and commercial ships in real conditions.an essential capacity so that astronauts can transfer from the main ship to the vehicle that will descend them to the Moon.
The moon landing itself is reserved for Artemis IVscheduled for 2028. On that mission, a new crew aboard Orion will descend to the surface in the region of the lunar south polean area of great scientific interest due to the possible presence of ice water in its permanently shadowed craters.
This resource is key to sustaining a prolonged human presence on the Moon and, eventually, to supply missions to Mars.
He Artemis programtaken as a whole, represents the United States’ long-term commitment to deep space exploration. With each mission, NASA seeks to accumulate operational knowledge, technological infrastructure and human experience to support an even more ambitious goal: sending the first astronauts to the red planet. “The future is ours to win,” Kshatriya concluded.
