Overview
- Orion returned the four-person Artemis II crew to Earth with a planned splashdown in the Pacific, and recovery teams retrieved them for medical checks.
- A brief loss of contact after splashdown was traced to a communications glitch, and controllers restored the link soon after.
- The crew—Reid Wiseman, Victor Glover, Christina Koch, and Canadian Jeremy Hansen—completed a lunar flyby to test deep-space operations.
- NASA reported only minor in-flight issues, including email software and the toilet, with no fuel leaks or heat-shield problems.
- President Trump praised the mission and invited the crew to the White House, and NASA now points to Artemis III in 2028 to try to land the first woman and the first Black person on the Moon.