Overview
- Orion touched down Friday at 8:07 p.m. ET in the Pacific off San Diego, and U.S. Navy teams lifted Reid Wiseman, Victor Glover, Christina Koch and Jeremy Hansen to the USS John P. Murtha for medical checks.
- Reentry drove the capsule to roughly Mach 32–33, creating a superheated plasma sheath that briefly cut communications before parachutes slowed the craft for a gentle ocean landing.
- NASA had changed the descent profile after Artemis I shed charred heat-shield material during reentry, and engineers will now inspect Artemis II’s shield to confirm the fix worked as expected.
- The crew completed the first human trip beyond low‑Earth orbit in more than 50 years, reached a record 252,756 miles from Earth, and captured rare views of the Moon’s far side and a total solar eclipse.
- Koch became the first woman beyond low‑Earth orbit, Glover the first person of color, and Hansen the first Canadian to travel to the Moon’s vicinity, as the mission’s test data now feeds into plans for future lunar landings.