Artemis II Completes Historic Crewed Lunar Flyby and Safe Earth Return

Sat, 11 Apr 2026 20:53:00 +0200

The Artemis II mission has concluded successfully with the splashdown of the Orion capsule Integrity in the Pacific Ocean on April 11, 2026, at 00:07:27 UTC. Astronauts Reid Wiseman, Victor Glover, Christina Koch, and Jeremy Hansen landed about 70 kilometers off the North American coast and were recovered by the USS John P. Murtha. Spanning over nine days, the crew traveled more than 1.1 million kilometers, marking the first human mission beyond Earth's gravitational influence since Apollo 17 in 1972 and the first lunar flyby since Apollo 13 in 1970. The reentry sequence proceeded smoothly, with the spacecraft performing all planned trajectory corrections and entering Earth's atmosphere at nearly escape velocity. The Orion's heat shield successfully withstood the intense conditions, achieving a maximum temperature of 2,760 ºC. The capsule deployed a series of parachutes for a precise landing at a speed under 30 km/h. All astronauts were safely recovered and transported to San Diego, th