• Mission surpasses Apollo 13’s distance record, reaching 252,000 miles from Earth; marks critical step toward lunar landing, eventual Mars mission
• Four astronauts recovered safely
• Orion capsule passes durability test, withstanding 5,000-degree re-entry

HOUSTON: The Artemis II capsule and its four-member crew streaked through Earth’s atmosphere and safely splashed down in the Pacific Ocean on Friday after nearly 10 days in space, capping the first human voyage to the vicinity of the moon in over half a century.

Nasa’s gumdrop-shaped Orion capsule, dubbed Integrity, parachuted into calm seas off the Southern California coast shortly after 5:07pm Pacific Time. The landing concluded a mission that four days prior had taken the astronauts 252,000 miles from Earth, deeper into space than anyone had flown before.

The splashdown, under partly cloudy skies, was carried on a live Nasa webcast.

“A perfect bull’s eye splashdown for Integrity and its four astronauts,” Nasa commentator Rob Navias said moments after the landing.

“We are stable one — four green crew members,” mission commander Reid Wiseman radioed just after splashdown, signaling the capsule was steady and that all four astronauts were in good shape.

It took Nasa and US Navy recovery teams less than two hours to secure the floating capsule and retrieve the crew — US. astronauts Wiseman, 50, Victor Glover, 49, and Christina Koch, 47, along with Canadian astronaut Jeremy Hansen, 50.

A Navy medical officer who briefly checked the astronauts aboard the capsule found them to be healthy, Nasa reported.

The Artemis II flight, traveling a total of 694,392 miles in two Earth orbits and a climactic lunar flyby, was the debut crewed test flight in a series of missions that aim to return astronauts to the lunar surface, with a landing now targeted for 2028.

The crew’s homecoming cleared a critical final hurdle for the Lockheed Martin-built Orion spacecraft, proving it could withstand the extreme forces of re-entry from a lunar-return trajectory.

The capsule endured a fiery plunge as it barreled into the atmosphere at nearly 33 times the speed of sound, generating frictional heat that sent temperatures on its exterior soaring to some 5,000 degrees Fahrenheit.

A planned radio blackout of several minutes occurred at the peak of re-entry stress due to a plume of ionised gas enveloping the vehicle.

The tension broke as contact was re-established and parachutes billowed from the capsule, slowing its descent to about 15 mph before it gently hit the water.

Navy divers attached a floating collar to stabilise the craft before the astronauts were helped onto an inflatable raft and hoisted to helicopters, which flew them to the nearby Navy amphibious transport vessel, the John P. Murtha.

The quartet blasted off from Cape Canaveral, Florida, on April 1. They became the first astronauts to fly around the moon since the Apollo programme of the 1960s and ’70s.

The mission marked historic milestones, as Glover became the first Black astronaut, Koch the first woman, and Hansen the first non-US citizen to take part in a lunar mission.

At its peak, the flight reached a point 252,756 miles from Earth, exceeding the previous record of roughly 248,000 miles set by the crew of Apollo 13 in 1970. The voyage was a critical dress rehearsal following the uncrewed Artemis I test flight in 2022.

“This is an incredible test of an incredible machine,” said Amit Kshatriya, Nasa’s associate administrator.

The ultimate goal of the Artemis programme, named for the twin sister of Apollo in Greek mythology, is to establish a long-term presence on the moon as a stepping stone to eventual human exploration of Mars.

US President Donald Trump hailed the astronauts’ return. “Congratulations to the Great and Very Talented Crew of Artemis II,” he said in a message posted to his Truth Social platform.

“The entire trip was spectacular, the landing was perfect and, as President of the United States, I could not be more proud!”

Compared with the Cold War-era Apollo programme, Nasa has characterised Artemis as a broader, more cooperative effort.

The US lunar programme has enlisted commercial partners such as Elon Musk’s SpaceX and Jeff Bezos’ Blue Origin, which are building lunar landers, along with the space agencies of Europe, Canada and Japan.

Published in Dawn, April 12th, 2026