Artemis 2 Astronauts Successfully Return to Earth After Completing a Historic Mission Around the Moon

NASA’s Artemis 2 mission is making waves after taking four astronauts on a historic journey around the moon.

Having completed a ten-day trip to our celestial companion and back, the crew aboard the agency’s Orion spacecraft splashed down in the Pacific Ocean on April 10 at 8:07 p.m. Eastern time off the coast of San Diego. Their flight marks the first time humans have traveled near our lunar neighbor in more than half a century and sets the stage for the rest of the Artemis program, including missions expected to take people back to the moon’s surface.

“What a journey,” NASA’s Reid Wiseman said moments after he and the others splashed down, during a livestream. “We are stable one. Four green crewmembers,” indicating everyone was faring well.

Following their safe landing, Wiseman and his fellow NASA astronauts, Victor Glover and Christina Koch, along with the Canadian Space Agency astronaut Jeremy Hansen, could finally emerge from the spacecraft’s cramped living quarters of 330 cubic feet—about the size of two minivans. The mission achieved the first crewed test flight of Orion and the Space Launch System rocket, which sent the astronauts toward the moon. Glover became the first Black person to reach the orb’s vicinity, Koch the first woman and Hansen the first Canadian.

Their journey kicked off mostly without a hitch, save for a few frustrations, including some potty problems. Formally called the universal waste management system, Orion’s toilet was designed to remedy some longstanding spacecraft bathroom issues and provide a few little luxuries—like processing urine and feces simultaneously, and having a door.

An initial issue likely came from insufficient water going into the toilet, which Koch fixed. After that, urine seemed to have frozen in a vent line, preventing the device from flushing out waste. So mission control directed the team to reposition the spacecraft to allow the sun’s heat to melt the clog. The astronauts also reported a burning smell coming from the space-faring commode.

Still, those inconveniences didn’t prevent the foursome from completing their objectives. Just after midnight Eastern time on April 6, they reached the moon’s vicinity, and at 1:56 p.m., they broke the record for the farthest distance traveled from Earth by humans. Orion ultimately journeyed 252,756 miles from our home planet—surpassing Apollo 13’s trip in 1970 by 4,111 miles—before heading back to Earth.

During the lunar flyby, the astronauts witnessed the moon’s far side, which always faces away from Earth, and kept their eyes and cameras peeled to observe 30 lunar surface targets. Those included two ancient craters, the nearly 600-mile-wide Orientale basin and the nearly 400-mile-wide Hertzsprung basin. The latter is older and more battered than Orientale, so comparing the two basins will help scientists understand how lunar features change over time.

The crew also suggested titles for two unnamed craters, dubbing one of them Integrity, the name of their spacecraft, and the other Carroll, to honor Wiseman’s late wife. Both labels will be submitted to the International Astronomical Union, which decides the names of celestial bodies and their features.  

Returning to Earth, however, was one of the most challenging aspects of the mission. Artemis 2’s launch was delayed by more than a year after the Orion capsule in Artemis 1—an uncrewed test flight in 2022—showed unexpected damage to its heat shield after splashdown.

That’s because the spacecraft slammed into Earth’s atmosphere at about 25,000 miles per hour, which is “fast enough to fly from New York to Tokyo in less than 20 minutes,” says Jacob Pinter, a producer and cohost of the “NASA’s Curious Universe” podcast, in an episode. During re-entry, friction with air particles slowed the capsule and created sweltering temperatures of nearly 5,000 degrees Fahrenheit, and superheated high-energy gas surrounded the spacecraft.

During the 2022 descent, Orion took a quick dip into the upper atmosphere, skipped back up, then re-entered for good, causing pressure to build in the heat shield, said Rick Henfling, NASA’s lead Artemis 2 entry flight director, during a September press briefing. Instead, Artemis 2 took a steeper, more direct re-entry route with a lower “loft” back out of the upper atmosphere before the final plummet to reduce the temperatures Orion was exposed to. As the spacecraft neared the planet’s surface, a series of parachutes deployed to slow its speed to about 19 miles per hour by the time it reached the Pacific.

“I just couldn’t be more proud of the entire workforce, the years, the effort, the late nights, all the hard work from across the country that contributed to this incredible moment,” NASA Administrator Jared Isaacman said shortly after splashdown, during the livestream.

Next up for the moon program is Artemis 3, a mission to low-Earth orbit slated for 2027, which will practice Orion’s capabilities to dock with commercially built lunar landers. NASA expects to follow this with up to two attempts to put people on the moon’s surface the following year.

“This is just the beginning,” Isaacman said. “We are going to get back into doing this with frequency, sending missions to the moon until we land on it in 2028 and start building our base.”