NASA’s Artemis II capsule splashed down in the Pacific Ocean off the coast of San Diego, Calif., at 8:07 P.M. EDT on April 10, bringing an end to a historic 10-day trip around the moon and back.
The astronauts’ return marks the culmination of the first crewed test flight of NASA’s Space Launch System rocket and Orion capsule; the achievement will undoubtedly strengthen the space agency’s plans for upcoming Artemis missions in the next few years and its eventual moon base ambitions.
“We are ... four green crewmembers,” said Reid Wiseman, the capsule’s commander, after splashdown—green means that the crew are all well.
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First, the space agency’s attention was focused firmly on the Artemis II crew. The four astronauts inside the Orion capsule, named Integrity, have endured a 13-minute ride in which they plummeted 400,000 feet through Earth’s atmosphere, with temperatures outside the capsule nearing 5,000 degrees Fahrenheit (2,760 degrees Celsius), to reach the water below. The falling craft caused a sonic boom as it reentered.
During this descent, the astronauts’ bodies would have felt absurdly heavy because of gravity—as a person accelerates downward at speed and then abruptly stops or slows down, the body experiences a higher g-force, which creates immense pressure on it. But after the crew members hit the water, commander Wiseman, pilot Victor Glover and mission specialists Christina Koch and Jeremy Hansen had some time to recover their senses and get ready to leave the capsule they have called home throughout their almost 700,000-mile journey.
Waiting for them was the USS John P. Murtha, a Navy ship, and smaller vessels with divers onboard who retrieved the crew from their capsule. The recovery teams can’t go in right away because they need to be sure that there is no risk of debris interfering with their operation. But once clear, the divers helped the astronauts open the capsule and exit onto a waiting inflatable raft. From there, the astronauts were hoisted into helicopters, which took them to the larger Navy ship.
After splashdown, NASA administrator Jared Isaacman thanked everyone at NASA who had worked on the Artemis II mission. “I just couldn't be more proud of the entire workforce, the years, the effort, the late nights, all the hard work from across the country that contributed to this incredible moment right now,” he said on the deck of the John P. Murtha.
The crew will be transferred back to shore in San Diego and board a plane for NASA’s Johnson Space Center in Houston, where their families await them.
Artemis II has been a mission of superlatives: The four astronauts hold the record for the farthest any human has ever been from Earth—252,756 miles—and they have seen areas of the far side of the moon that no one has ever viewed directly before. Just as the Apollo missions did more than 50 years ago, NASA hopes their achievements and the science observations they collected, including of a total solar eclipse, will fuel lunar research and our understanding of the moon for decades to come.
“We made a big step tonight to get us on the path towards the surface,” said Amit Kshatriya, NASA’s associate administrator, after the crew splashed down. “This was an incredible test of an incredible machine.”
“I think this has been a gift to the world from NASA,” he added.
Editor’s Note (4/10/26): This is a breaking news story and will be updated.