Completed 10-Day Journey Of 252,756 Miles Around The Moon And Back
The first astronauts to travel to the Moon in more than half a century are back on Earth after a record-setting mission aboard NASA’s Artemis II test flight.
Artemis II crewmembers NASA astronauts Reid Wiseman, Victor Glover, Christina Koch, and CSA (Canadian Space Agency) astronaut Jeremy Hansen, splashed down in the Pacific Ocean off San Diego at 5:07 p.m. PDT Friday. After splashdown in the Pacific Ocean, the astronauts were met by a combined NASA and U.S. military team that assisted them out of the spacecraft in open water and transported them via helicopter to the USS John P. Murtha for initial medical checkouts. The crew members are expected to return to NASA’s Johnson Space Center in Houston on Saturday, April 11.
During their mission, Wiseman, Glover, Koch, and Hansen flew 694,481 miles in total. Their lunar flyby took them farther than any humans have ever traveled before, surpassing the previous distance record set by Apollo 13 astronauts in 1970. During their April 6 lunar flyby, the astronauts captured more than 7,000 images of the lunar surface and a solar eclipse, during which the moon blocked the sun from Orion’s vantage point. The imagery includes striking views of earthset and earthrise, impact craters, ancient lava flows, our Milky Way galaxy, and surface fractures and color variations across the lunar terrain.
They documented the topography along the terminator — the boundary between lunar day and night — where low-angle sunlight casts long shadows across the surface, creating illumination conditions similar to those in the South Pole region where astronauts are scheduled to land in 2028. “As the first astronauts to fly this rocket and spacecraft, the crew accepted significant risk in service of the knowledge gained and the future we are determined to build. NASA also acknowledges the contributions of the entire NASA workforce, along with our international partners, whose expertise and commitment were essential to this mission’s success. With Artemis II complete, focus now turns confidently toward assembling Artemis III and preparing to return to the lunar surface, build the base, and never give up the moon again,” NASA Administrator Jared Isaacman said.
