Four astronauts aboard NASA’s Orion are preparing to reenter Earth’s atmosphere and splash down in the Pacific off southern California. Splashdown is scheduled for April 10, shortly after 8 p.m. Eastern Time (0100 GMT).
The crew — Commander Reid Wiseman, Pilot Victor Glover, and Mission Specialists Christina Koch and Jeremy Hansen — launched from Cape Canaveral on April 1 for a roughly 10-day lunar flyby. During the mission they became the first people to see the Moon’s far side and traveled farther from Earth than any humans since Apollo, surpassing the distance record set by Apollo 13.
A clean reentry and recovery are essential to NASA’s plan to move forward with Artemis III, the mission intended to return humans to the lunar surface. Artemis II is also validating the systems and procedures needed to bring astronauts safely back from beyond lunar distance. NASA says this return will be the fastest and hottest crewed reentry since Apollo 13.
Recovery operations will be led by the U.S. Navy, which will position ships and divers to retrieve the Orion capsule from the water. Ocean recovery allows teams to recover the spacecraft intact for inspection and to transfer the crew to a Navy vessel for medical checks. After initial medical evaluation and debriefing at sea, the astronauts will be flown back to NASA’s Johnson Space Center in Houston.
Artemis II is the first crewed lunar mission since 1972, and it has prompted questions about program costs and funding alongside its technical milestones. NASA and partners will conduct thorough inspections of the Orion capsule and reentry systems before certifying future crewed lunar landings. The crew reported seeing sights they had “never even imagined,” and media outlets followed the mission live as its single critical reentry will help determine the program’s next steps.