NASA's Artemis II mission splashed down off San Diego at 5:07 p.m. PDT, returning Commander Reid Wiseman, pilot Victor Glover, and mission specialists Christina Koch and Jeremy Hansen after a nine-day lunar flyby.
On April 6 the crew conducted a visual geologic survey of the Moon's far side and reached 252,756 miles, the farthest distance from Earth reached by any living organisms, marking NASA's first crewed lunar voyage since Apollo 17 in 1972.
The Orion capsule Integrity endured Mach 35 reentry with surface temperatures up to about 3,000°F, and NASA said engineers recreated a 2022 Artemis I heat-shield failure on the ground and adjusted the entry angle; chase planes collected reentry data.
After 3.9 Gs of deceleration, parachutes slowed Integrity to about 20 mph for splashdown, and the USS John P. Murtha will recover the Artemis II crew and tow the capsule; the astronauts will have medical checks before flying to Houston.
This report is based on information originally published by Jalopnik.
Read the full article at Jalopnik.
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