Artemis Program · China · California · CNBC Technology
Artemis II astronauts hurtle home from moon toward splashdown
Compiled by KHAO Editorial — aggregated from 3 outlets. See llms.txt for citation guidance.
✓ KHAO Verified
Artemis II capsule and its four-member crew streaked through Earth's atmosphere and safely splashed down in the Pacific Ocean on Friday after nearly 10 days in space, capping the first voyage by humans to the vicinity of the moon in over half a century.
Key facts
- Recovery teams were standing by to secure the floating capsule and retrieve the crew
- U.S. astronauts Reid Wiseman, 50, Victor Glover, 49, and Christina Koch, 47, along with Canadian astronaut
- It followed a white-knuckle, 13-minute fiery plunge through Earth's atmosphere, generating frictional heat that sent temperatures on the capsule's exterior soaring to some 5,000 degrees Fahrenheit
- At the flight's peak, the Artemis astronauts reached a point 252,756 miles from Earth, exceeding the previous record of roughly 248,000 miles set in 1970 by the crew of Apollo 13
- NASA's gumdrop-shaped Orion capsule, dubbed Integrity, parachuted gently into the sea off the Southern California coast shortly after 5 p.m
Summary
NASA's gumdrop-shaped Orion capsule, dubbed Integrity, parachuted gently into the sea off the Southern California coast shortly after 5 p.m. The Artemis II flight, traveling a total of 694,392 miles (1,117,515 km) across two Earth orbits and a climactic lunar flyby some 252,000 miles away, was the debut crewed test flight in a series of Artemis missions that aim to start landing astronauts on the lunar surface starting in 2028. The splashdown, about two hours before sunset, was carried by live video feed in a NASA webcast.