Overview
- The video, released late Monday by Commander Reid Wiseman, shows Navy medical divers opening Orion’s hatch and greeting the four astronauts after Friday’s splashdown off San Diego.
- The crew completed a 10-day lunar flyby and set a new human distance record of about 252,756 miles from Earth before turning home from the Moon’s far side.
- Reentry reached roughly 25,000 mph and heated the heat shield to about 5,000°F before an 11-parachute sequence slowed Orion for a pinpoint ocean landing.
- NASA has begun postflight work with high-resolution images of the lunar farside and Earthrise/Earthset that will help plan surface missions and refine lighting and terrain assumptions near the Moon’s south pole.
- With Artemis II complete, NASA targets Artemis III in 2027 to practice Orion’s rendezvous and docking with commercial lunar landers in Earth orbit, followed by a planned Artemis IV landing attempt in 2028, as debate over program costs intensifies after an inspector general estimate of at least $4 billion for the launch.