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Artemis II Astronauts Safely Return to Earth After Historic Flight Around the Moon
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The farthest journey in human history concluded Friday evening when NASA’s Artemis II astronauts returned to Earth after a flight around the moon.
Key facts
- At 12:41 am Eastern Time on April 6, Artemis II entered the lunar sphere of influence, where the moon’s gravity overcomes that of Earth
- Artemis II began on April 1 when the crew launched from NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida atop the 322-foot-tall Space Launch System rocket, the most powerful vehicle to ever carry humans
- The plan was for the capsule to deploy two drogue parachutes at an altitude of about 22,000 feet, slowing it to about 200 miles per hour, then deploy pilot chutes pulling the three main parachutes
- The four-person crew of Artemis II—commander Reid Wiseman, pilot Victor Glover, mission specialist Christina Koch, and mission-specialist Jeremy Hansen—traveled a greater distance from Earth
Summary
The four-person crew of Artemis II—commander Reid Wiseman, pilot Victor Glover, mission specialist Christina Koch, and mission-specialist Jeremy Hansen—traveled a greater distance from Earth than anyone has before, reaching 252,756 miles from their home planet. “We most importantly choose this moment to challenge this generation and the next to make sure this record is not long-lived,” said Canadian astronaut Hansen as the crew passed the previous record of 248,655 miles set during Apollo 13. Integrity began its fiery descent when the spacecraft hit Earth’s atmosphere at about 24,000 miles per hour, entering a communication blackout and decelerating from friction as its heat shield reached temperatures of roughly 3,000 degrees Fahrenheit. During their mission, the Artemis II crew saw things that no human has seen before.