Artemis II Astronauts Complete Historic Moon Mission

Four astronauts are about to ride a fireball home after making history at the moon.

Nearly 10 days after launching from Kennedy Space Center, the Artemis II crew is set to splash down in the Pacific Ocean off San Diego this evening. NASA astronauts Reid Wiseman, Victor Glover, Christina Koch, and Canadian astronaut Jeremy Hansen broke a 54-year-old record by traveling farther from Earth than any humans since Apollo 13.

The journey home won't be easy. Their Orion capsule will punch through Earth's atmosphere at 25,000 miles per hour, experiencing temperatures over 5,000 degrees Fahrenheit. The spacecraft will slow from that blistering speed to just 20 miles per hour in only 13 minutes, thanks to a series of parachutes.

Mission pilot Glover has been thinking about this moment since his selection in 2023. "We have to get back," he said from the capsule Wednesday. "There's so much data, so many more pictures, so many more stories, and I haven't even begun to process what we've been through."

The crew spent recent days preparing for their 8:07 p.m. ET splashdown. They packed equipment, adjusted their trajectory, and mentally prepared for the intense reentry. The USS John P. Murtha is already positioned near the landing zone, ready to welcome them home.

Why This Inspires

This mission represents more than breaking records. For the first time in over half a century, humans returned to the moon and saw its far side from angles never before witnessed. The crew tested manual controls that future astronauts will need for lunar landings. They proved the spacecraft can keep people safe and comfortable during deep space travel.

Their geological observations and photographs will help scientists better understand what the moon is made of and where it came from. Every data point they collected brings us closer to establishing a lasting human presence beyond Earth.

The heat shield faced its biggest test during this mission. After issues on the previous uncrewed flight, NASA adjusted the reentry angle to reduce stress on the system. Lead flight director Jeff Radigan knows the stakes. "It's 13 minutes of things that have to go right," he said.

But if today goes as planned, humanity will have taken its most significant step toward the stars in decades. The crew will return to Johnson Space Center in Houston carrying not just data and images, but proof that we can once again reach beyond our world.

Tonight, four explorers come home having shown us that the impossible is simply what we haven't done yet.