Image: NASA/Handout/REUTERS
Artemis II mission: The four crew members are back on Earth after splashing down in the Pacific Ocean off the California coast.
What you should know:
- The NASA astronauts became the first humans to observe the far-side of the moon
- The Orion spacecraft broke Apollo 13’s record for traveling the farthest distance from Earth
- NASA’s Artemis 2 was the first crewed mission to the moon since 1972
- The Artemis II was launched aboard the Orion spacecraft on 1 April 2026
- The astronauts aboard the Artemis II traveled further into space than anyone in history
- During a six-hour flyby, the crew captured images never seen before of the far side of the moon
- The four-member crew splashed down in the Pacific Ocean off the coast of California on April 10
- From liftoff to splashdown, the trip clocked in at 9 days, 1 hour, 32 minutes and 15 seconds — though NASA rounds up and calls it a 10-day mission
Navy personnel were waiting for the crew in boats so that they could extract them from their raft – Image: NASA/Handout/REUTERS
‘Welcome to our moonshot,’ NASA says after success of Artemis II
NASA officials on Friday celebrated the success of the Artemis II mission, hailing the success of the astronauts but also the many engineers behind the mission.
“53 years ago, humanity left the moon, this time we return to stay. Let us finish what they started,” said Amit Kshatriya, NASA associate administrator.
Lori Glaze, deputy associate administrator of NASA’s Exploration Systems Development Mission Directorate, said this was only the beginning.
“We did it! We sent four amazing people to the moon and safely returned them to Earth for the first time in more than 50 years,” Glaze said. “To the generation that now knows what we’re capable of, welcome to our moonshot.”
The Artemis II astronauts make their way to the US Navy USS John P. Murtha aboard a Navy helicopter – Image: NASA/Handout/REUTERS
The four-member Artemis II crew have been picked up by Navy helicopters after splashing down in the Pacific Ocean off the coast of Southern California as scheduled.
Astronauts land on US Navy ship
The four-member crew of the Artemis II has landed on the US Navy USS John P. Murtha, concluding a lengthy extraction mission after their splashdown in the Pacific Ocean.
The crew will undergo initial medical evaluations on the ship before continuing to Houston, where they are due to reunite with their families.
DW.com/NAN 11 April 26
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