The Orion capsule of the Artemis II mission successfully landed this Friday in the Pacific Ocean, about 110 kilometers (60 miles) off the coast of San Diego, California, completing a historic journey of 10 days and over 1.1 million kilometers (685,000 miles) around the Moon.
The landing occurred at 8:07 p.m. Eastern Time and completed the first manned mission to orbit the Moon since Apollo 17 in December 1972, more than 50 years later.
The crew consisted of commander Reid Wiseman, pilot Victor Glover, mission specialist Christina Koch, and specialist Jeremy Hansen from the Canadian Space Agency, who became the first Canadian astronaut to fly around the Moon.
The last day in space began with the song "Run To The Water" by Live, played by Mission Control as the wake-up call for the crew.
At 2:53 p.m. Eastern Time, the third and final trajectory correction maneuver was executed, confirmed by Mission Control with the words, "Good engine, good control. Maneuver complete."
The reentry was one of the most critical moments. The capsule entered the atmosphere at 7:53 p.m. Eastern Time at an altitude of nearly 122 km, traveling at approximately 40,233 km/h — about 35 times the speed of sound — enduring up to 3.9 G of force and a six-minute communication blackout.
At 8:03 p.m., the brake parachutes were deployed at 6.7 km, followed by the three main parachutes at an altitude of 1.8 km, which slowed the capsule down to about 32 km/h before it touched the water.
The crew was recovered by combined teams from NASA and the United States Army and transported by helicopter to the USS John P. Murtha for medical evaluations.
The mission achieved historic milestones over its 10 days. On April 6, Artemis II set the record for the farthest distance traveled by humans from Earth, reaching 406,773 km, surpassing the 400,171 km set by Apollo 13 in April 1970, a record that stood for more than 56 years and that Guinness World Records officially recognized.
During the lunar flyby, the spacecraft passed just 6,543 km from the surface of the far side of the Moon, experiencing a communication blackout for 40 minutes.
The crew captured historic images, including the Orientale basin—930 km in diameter—seen in its entirety by humans for the first time, and the Earth "disappearing" behind the Moon.
The re-entry of Artemis II also tested a new, more direct trajectory, designed after the damage detected on the thermal shield during the uncrewed Artemis I mission in 2022, validating the systems of the Orion capsule with a human crew in preparation for the upcoming mission.
The Artemis program aims for a final goal of landing on the lunar south pole with Artemis III, scheduled for 2027, making this successful return a decisive step toward humanity's definitive return to the lunar surface.
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