Artemis II Capsule Splashes Down Off San Diego, Ending Moon Flyby Mission

NASA’s Orion capsule Integrity splashed down in the Pacific Ocean off San Diego at 8:07 p.m. Eastern on Friday, ending NASA’s first crewed lunar mission in more than 50 years, according to NBC News. CBS News and NBC News reported that all four astronauts, Reid Wiseman, Victor Glover and Christina Koch of NASA and Jeremy Hansen of the Canadian Space Agency, returned safely.

Mission Control called it “a perfect bullseye splashdown,” CBS News reported. NBC News said the capsule came down upright within about a mile of the target. Navy divers stabilized the capsule, and the crew was flown by helicopter to the USS John P. Murtha, a Navy transport ship, for medical checks. CBS News said a medical officer reported the crew was “feeling great, happy to be home.”

NBC News said the flight lasted 10 days and covered 700,237 miles; CBS News described the flyby as roughly nine days. Both reported that the crew set the record for the greatest distance humans have traveled from Earth, 252,756 miles, surpassing Apollo 13’s mark from 1970.

The riskiest moment was the return. CBS News said Orion hit the atmosphere at about 24,000 miles per hour, with heat shield temperatures peaking near 5,000 degrees Fahrenheit and a communications blackout lasting about six minutes. The heat shield had been a concern since part of it cracked during the uncrewed Artemis I flight in 2022, and NBC News reported that NASA changed the reentry path to descend faster and at a steeper angle. NBC News said NASA will analyze the shield’s performance once the capsule reaches Kennedy Space Center in Florida.

CBS News reported that Orion will be taken to Naval Base San Diego and later to Florida for inspection and data retrieval. NASA officials called the mission a success and said it marks “the start of a new era of space exploration,” CBS News said, and President Trump congratulated the crew and said he looks forward to seeing them at the White House.

The nearer-term plan is more modest. NBC News reported that Artemis III, targeted for mid-2027, will test lunar landers from SpaceX or Blue Origin in low Earth orbit, and that Artemis IV, planned for 2028, aims to land astronauts on the moon. NASA associate administrator Amit Kshatriya said of the program, “This time, we return to stay,” NBC News reported.

Both outlets said the crew set the distance record during the flight, and the post-flight heat shield analysis is still ahead.