The Artemis II crew is returning to Earth after a record-setting lunar flyby mission.
The Orion capsule will splash down in the Pacific Ocean near San Diego.
The high-speed atmospheric re-entry is considered the mission's most dangerous phase.
A U.S. Navy team will recover the astronauts and spacecraft.
This test flight is a critical step toward future crewed Moon landings.
📖 Full Retelling
The four-member Artemis II crew, consisting of NASA astronauts Reid Wiseman, Victor Glover, Christina Koch, and Canadian Space Agency astronaut Jeremy Hansen, is scheduled to return to Earth on December 11, 2024, concluding their historic nine-day lunar flyby mission. Their Orion capsule is set to splash down in the Pacific Ocean off the coast of San Diego, California, following a mission that carried the crew farther from Earth than any humans have traveled before, surpassing the Apollo 13 record.
This return marks the critical final phase of NASA's Artemis II test flight, which serves as a crucial precursor to landing astronauts on the Moon later this decade. The crew's journey home involves the perilous high-speed re-entry through Earth's atmosphere, a period mission managers describe as the riskiest part of the flight. The Orion capsule will endure temperatures approaching 5,000 degrees Fahrenheit as it decelerates from lunar return velocity before its parachutes deploy for a gentle ocean landing.
Recovery operations will be handled by a dedicated U.S. Navy team stationed aboard the USS John P. Murtha. Once the capsule is secured, divers will assist the astronauts as they exit the spacecraft. The crew will then undergo initial medical evaluations on the recovery ship before being transported by helicopter to shore, where more comprehensive post-mission assessments will begin. Their safe return is essential for validating the Orion spacecraft's systems ahead of the planned Artemis III lunar landing mission.
🏷️ Themes
Space Exploration, Mission Safety, Technological Validation
The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA ) is an independent agency of the U.S. federal government responsible for the United States' civil space program and for research in aeronautics and space exploration. Headquartered in Washington, D.C., NASA operates ten field centers across th...
Artemis II is a planned lunar spaceflight mission under the Artemis program, led by NASA. It is intended to be the second flight of the Space Launch System (SLS), and the first crewed mission of the Orion spacecraft. It is the first crewed mission around the Moon, and beyond low Earth orbit, since A...
The physical exploration of the Moon began when Luna 2, a space probe launched by the Soviet Union, made a deliberate impact on the surface of the Moon on 14 September, 1959. Prior to that the only available means of lunar exploration had been observations from Earth. The invention of the optical te...
American crewed spacecraft for the Artemis program
Orion (Orion Multi-Purpose Crew Vehicle or Orion MPCV) is a partially reusable crewed spacecraft used in NASA's Artemis program. The spacecraft consists of a Crew Module (CM) space capsule designed by Lockheed Martin that is paired with a European Service Module (ESM) manufactured by Airbus Defence ...
The Artemis II crew – (from left) Mission Specialist Christina Koch, Mission Specialist Jeremy Hansen, Pilot Victor Glover, and Commander Reid Wiseman – pause for a group photo inside the Orion spacecraft on their way home. (Photo by NASA via Getty Images) | NASA via Getty Images
The Orion capsule, carrying Artemis II commander Reid Wiseman, pilot Victor Glover, mission specialist Christina Koch, and Canadian astronaut Jeremy Hansen, is expected to land back to Earth after a nine-day mission that set a record for the farthest distance humans have ever traveled from our planet .
After making a high-speed re-entry through the atmosphere, the capsule is expected to splash down in the Pacific Ocean near San Diego at approximately 5:07PM PT / 8:07PM ET. Navy recovery crews will bring the astronauts to the USS John P. Murtha for medical checks before they helicopter back to land.
Re-entry is unquestionably the riskiest pa …
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