After 10 days, the four astronauts aboard the Orion spacecraft have returned to Earth, their mission around the Moon a success.
Integrity, the name of the crew’s spacecraft as part of NASA’s Artemis II mission, splashed down in the Pacific Ocean off the coast of San Diego, California, at 5:07 p.m. Pacific Time, according to NASA. The four crew members aboard — three Americans and one Canadian — were all in “green” (or safe and healthy) condition after the Orion craft’s “perfect” landing.
The crew was composed of Commander Reid Wiseman, pilot Victor Glover, and mission specialists Christina Koch and Jeremy Hansen. From liftoff to splashdown, the quartet was in space for just over nine days (with NASA rounding up and calling it a 10-day mission).
Artemis II was NASA’s first mission to the Moon’s orbit in more than 50 years. The crew traveled farther from Earth than humans ever have before — reaching an estimated 252,760 miles from our planet. During their journey, the crew orbited the Moon, taking photos from their flyby of never-before-seen parts of the surface, and even witnessing a total solar eclipse. They identified new craters, naming one after Wiseman’s wife Carroll, who died of cancer in 2020.
“These were the ambassadors to the stars that we sent out there,” Jared Isaacman, NASA’s administrator, said after the landing. “I can’t imagine a better crew. It was a perfect mission.”
Isaacman, a commercial astronaut who has been on two private orbital missions, also took to X to celebrate the mission and signaled there would be more to come, noting that America is back in the business.
“America is back in the business of sending astronauts to the Moon and bringing them home safely,” he wrote on X, later giving credit to the entire NASA workforce. “This was a test mission, the first crewed flight of SLS and Orion, pushing farther into the unforgiving environment of space than ever before, and it carried real risk. They accepted that risk for all we stood to learn and for the exciting missions that follow, as we return to the lunar surface, build a Moon base, and prepare for what comes next.”
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