NASA’s Artemis II astronauts return to earth after historic moon mission

WASHINGTON: The NASA’s Artemis II mission has successfully concluded, marking a major milestone in humanity’s return to deep space exploration with the four-member crew, Reid Wiseman, Victor Glover, Christina Koch, and Jeremy Hansen, safely splashed down after completing a historic 10-day journey around the Moon aboard the Orion spacecraft.

NASA posted on X, “Welcome home Reid, Victor, Christina, and Jeremy! The Artemis II astronauts have splashed down at 8:07pm ET (0007 UTC April 11), bringing their historic 10-day mission around the Moon to an end.”

In another post earlier, the agency highlighted the spacecraft’s descent, stating, “Orion's main parachute has deployed. The spacecraft has a system of 11 chutes that will slow it down from around 300 mph to 20 mph for splashdown.”

Prior to their arrival, NASA noted that after a journey of more than 690,000 miles, the crew was nearing Earth.