NASA’s Orion spacecraft splashes into the Pacific Ocean, as seen in an overhead view. (NASA via YouTube)
Four astronauts and their Orion space capsule splashed down in the Pacific Ocean today, bringing the first crewed trip around the moon and back since 1972 to a successful end.
“What a journey!” mission commander Reid Wiseman said moments after splashdown.
During their 10-day odyssey, the crew of NASA’s Artemis 2 mission — Wiseman, pilot Victor Glover, mission specialist Christina Koch and Canadian astronaut Jeremy Hansen — became the most distant human travelers in history, swinging more than 4,000 miles past the moon’s far side. Koch is the first woman to venture beyond Earth orbit, Glover is the first Black astronaut to do so, and Hansen is the first non-U.S. astronaut to make such a trip.
The flight tested the Artemis program’s hardware and procedures to prepare the way for sending astronauts all the way to the lunar surface by as early as 2028, and for building a permanent lunar base in the 2030s.
“It’s the most important human spaceflight mission I think we’ve done in many decades, in terms of what it meant historically, but also what it means for the future of the agency,” NASA Associate Administrator Amit Kshatriya said at a post-splashdown news conference.
Orion’s hardware — including components built in the Seattle area — came through when it counted. Two sets of thrusters for Orion were built by L3Harris’ Aerojet Rocketdyne team in Redmond, Wash., while mechanisms that were made by Karman Space & Defense in Mukilteo, Wash., facilitated the safe deployment of Orion’s parachutes in the mission’s final minutes.
NASA calculated that Orion traveled 700,237 miles in all, from its launch atop a massive Space Launch System rocket on April 1 to its splashdown off the coast of California at 5:07 p.m. PT.
Textbook end to a history-making trip
The final hour of the mission unfolded as NASA planned. After jettisoning its European-built service module, the Orion crew module — christened Integrity by the astronauts — hit the atmosphere at a speed of more than 24,000 mph. The shock of re-entry created a plasma field around the spacecraft that blacked out radio communications for six minutes.
The crew endured G-forces that ranged up to 3.9 times the force of Earth’s gravity — about what they felt during launch — and Orion’s heat shield endured temperatures of 4,000 to 5,000 degrees Fahrenheit. The trajectory for Orion’s descent was designed to reduce the stress on the heat shield, after NASA discovered that the heat shield for an earlier uncrewed round-the-moon mission, Artemis 1, underwent more serious charring than expected.
“This is the true test of our trajectory,” NASA commentator Rob Navias said.
Orion passed the test: “Houston, Integrity: We have you loud and clear,” Wiseman told Mission Control when the blackout ended, sparking a cheer from ground controllers.
The spacecraft’s parachutes deployed on cue, and Orion’s descent slowed to a speed of 19 mph by the time it hit the water in the Pacific southwest of San Diego.
Moments after splashdown, Wiseman reported that all four of the astronauts were in good health. Orion’s airbags were inflated with helium to help stabilize the floating craft.
“It was a textbook mission,” Navias said.
Recovery teams converged on the touchdown site, hampered somewhat by a glitch that arose with the crew’s satellite phone connection. Mission Control was able to stay in two-way contact with the crew via radio, however, and assisted with troubleshooting.
The astronauts were brought out from the spacecraft and hoisted up to helicopters for transfer to the USS John P. Murtha, an amphibious transport dock ship that served as the lead ship in the recovery effort. After undergoing medical checks, they were to be brought to shore in San Diego — and on Saturday, they’ll be flown to Johnson Space Center in Houston. Meanwhile, the Orion capsule will be towed back onto the USS John P. Murtha’s well deck for transport.
Back at Mission Control, members of the Artemis 2 team hugged each other as they watched the video from the Pacific. “The mission is over, but the melody lingers on,” Navias said.
Recovery team members bring Artemis 2’s astronauts out of the Orion spacecraft and onto a raft known as the “Front Porch” in preparation for transport to the USS John P. Murtha in the Pacific Ocean. (NASA via YouTube)
On the ship, NASA Administrator Jared Isaacman said he “couldn’t be more proud of the entire workforce” at the space agency.
“The childhood Jared can’t believe what I just saw,” said Isaacman, who was born 10 years after the final Apollo moon mission in 1972. “I’ve almost been waiting my whole life to see this.”
He pledged that Artemis 2’s round-the-moon trip wouldn’t be a once-in-a-lifetime experience. “This is just the beginning,” he said. “We are going to get back into doing this with frequency, sending missions to the moon until we land on it in 2028 and start building our base.”
President Donald Trump passed along his congratulations. “The entire trip was spectacular, the landing was perfect and, as President of the United States, I could not be more proud!” Trump wrote in a post on Truth Social. “I look forward to seeing you all at the White House soon. We’ll be doing it again and then, next step, Mars!”
Looking back, looking ahead
Even though Artemis 2 was primarily an engineering test mission, the trip also brought scientific benefits. The astronauts conducted a wide-angle survey of the lunar far side, and described areas that the Apollo program’s astronauts couldn’t see with their own eyes due to lighting conditions and a closer-in orbital perspective.
At the beginning and end of their swing around the moon, the Artemis 2 crew captured stunning images of Earthset and Earthrise, stirring the same feelings of awe that were sparked by Apollo 8’s original Earthrise image in 1968. The astronauts also witnessed an unearthly kind of solar eclipse that created an eerie glow around the darkened moon.
The upper image shows Earthrise during Apollo 8’s trip around the moon in 1968. The lower image shows Earthset during Artemis 2’s trip around the moon this week. (NASA Photos)
A darkened moon is backlit by scattered sunlight during an eerie solar eclipse observed by the Artemis 2 crew. (NASA Photo)
The astronauts were 252,756 miles from Earth at the farthest point of their trip, which exceeded the previous record set by Apollo 13 in 1970 by 4,101 miles.
Even though it was a textbook mission, not everything went perfectly. The first toilet to be installed in a spacecraft that was sent beyond Earth orbit acted up during the outbound leg of the journey, apparently due to ice that blocked a wastewater vent line. “Nailing this capability is one that we need to certainly work on,” Isaacman said at the time.
NASA also detected a slight helium leak in the pressurization system for the oxidizer tank on Orion’s service module. The leak didn’t pose a problem for Artemis 2, but Kshatriya said the system might have to be redesigned for the lunar landing mission in 2028.
Meanwhile, SpaceX and Blue Origin are still working on the landing systems that will be needed to get future astronauts to the lunar surface. NASA is planning to test-drive SpaceX’s Starship lander and/or Blue Origin’s Blue Moon lander in low Earth orbit next year during Artemis 3.
If all goes according to plan, one of those landers would facilitate the first lunar landing since 1972 during the Artemis 4 mission in early 2028, and the crew of Artemis 5 would begin work on a base near the moon’s south pole in late 2028.
As a warmup, Jeff Bezos’ Blue Origin space venture is gearing up to send an uncrewed version of the Blue Moon lander, known as Endurance, to the moon’s south polar region later this year. That region is a prime target for lunar exploration and settlement because its craters are thought to harbor reserves of ice that could be converted to drinkable water and breathable oxygen, plus hydrogen that could be used as rocket fuel.
Today Blue Origin CEO Dave Limp added his congratulations on a successful Artemis 2 mission, calling it “this generation’s Apollo moment.”
“On to Artemis III!” he said in a post to X.
