Artemis II’s astronauts closed out humanity’s first lunar voyage in more than half a century with a Pacific splashdown on Friday, blazing new records near the moon with grace and joy.
It was a dramatic grand finale to a mission that revealed not only swaths of the lunar far side never seen before by human eyes, but a total solar eclipse and a parade of planets, most notably our own shimmering Earth against the endless black void of space.
With their flight now complete, the four astronauts have set NASA up for a moon landing by another crew in just two years and a full-blown moon base within the decade.
The triumphant moon-farers — commander Reid Wiseman, pilot Victor Glover, Christina Koch and Canada’s Jeremy Hansen — emerged from their bobbing capsule into the sunlight off the coast of San Diego.
In a scene reminiscent of NASA’s Apollo moonshots of yesteryear, military helicopters hoisted the astronauts one by one from an inflatable raft docked to the capsule, hauling them aboard for the short trip to the Navy’s awaiting recovery ship, the USS John P. Murtha.
“These were the ambassadors from humanity to the stars that we sent out there right now, and I can’t imagine a better crew,” NASA Administrator Jared Isaacman said from the recovery ship.
NASA’s Mission Control erupted in celebration, with hundreds pouring in from the back support rooms. “We did it,” NASA’s Lori Glaze rejoiced at a news conference. “Welcome to our moonshot.”
Their Orion capsule, dubbed Integrity, made the entire plunge on automatic pilot. The lunar cruiser hit the atmosphere traveling Mach 33 — or 33 times the speed of sound — a blistering blur not seen since the 1960s and 1970s Apollo.
The tension in Mission Control mounted as the capsule became engulfed in red-hot plasma during peak heating and entered a planned communication blackout. All eyes were on the capsule’s life-protecting heat shield that had to withstand thousands of degrees during reentry.
Watching the drama unfold nearly 2,000 miles (3,200 kilometers) away, the astronauts’ families huddled in Mission Control’s viewing room, cheering when the capsule emerged from its six-minute blackout and again at splashdown.
The last time NASA and the Defense Department teamed up for a lunar crew’s reentry was Apollo 17 in 1972. Artemis II came screaming back at 36,174 feet (11,026 meters) per second — or 24,664 mph (39,693 kph) — just shy of the record before slowing to a 19 mph (30 kph) splashdown.
Until Artemis II, NASA’s fresh-from-the-moon homecomings starred only white male pilots. Intent on reflecting changes in society, NASA chose a diverse, multinational crew for its lunar comeback.
Koch became the first woman to fly to the moon, Glover the first Black astronaut, and Hansen the first non-U.S. citizen, bursting Canada with pride. They laughed, cried and hugged all the way there and back, striving to take the entire world along with them.
Artemis II’s record flyby and views of the moon
Launched from Florida on April 1, the astronauts racked up one win after another as they deftly navigated NASA’s long-awaited lunar comeback, the first major step in establishing a sustainable moon base.
Artemis II didn’t land on the moon or even orbit it. But it broke Apollo 13’s distance record and marked the farthest that humans have ever journeyed from Earth when the crew reached 252,756 miles (406,771 kilometers). Then in the mission’s most heart-tugging scene, the teary astronauts asked permission to name a pair of craters after their moonship and Wiseman’s late wife, Carroll.
During Monday’s record-breaking flyby, they documented scenes of the moon’s far side never seen before by the human eye along with a total solar eclipse. The eclipse, in particular, “just blew all of us away,” Glover said.
Their sense of wonder and love awed everyone, as did their breathtaking pictures of the moon and Earth. The Artemis II crew channeled Apollo 8’s first lunar explorers with Earthset, showing our Blue Marble setting behind the gray moon. It was reminiscent of Apollo 8’s famous Earthrise shot from 1968.
Born a decade after Apollo, Isaacman greeted the astronauts with hugs as they headed from the helicopters to the ship’s medical bay for routine checks. They walked by themselves, refusing the wheelchairs offered them.
“We are back in the business of sending astronauts to the moon, bringing them back safely and to set up for a series more,” Isaacman said. “This is just the beginning.”