The Orion capsule from the Artemis 2 mission, carrying a four-member crew, successfully returned to Earth and splashed down in the Pacific Ocean after nearly 10 days in space. This is the first crewed journey near the Moon in more than five decades.

During the ten-day journey, the crew orbited Earth twice before traveling around the far side of the Moon in a flight covering a total distance of 1,117,515 kilometers. The astronauts reached a point 406,771 kilometers from Earth, surpassing the previous record set by the Apollo 13 crew.

The capsule reached the ocean surface after an intense 13-minute descent through the atmosphere, during which exterior temperatures reached approximately 2,760 degrees Celsius. At peak entry, the intense heat created a glowing plasma sheath around the capsule, temporarily cutting off radio contact with the crew.

American astronauts Reid Wiseman, Victor Glover, and Christina Koch, along with Canadian astronaut Jeremy Hansen, were recovered by NASA and U.S. Navy teams. Glover, Koch, and Hansen made history as the first Black astronaut, the first woman, and the first non-American citizen to participate in a lunar mission.

The Artemis 2 mission serves as a crucial preparation for the planned Moon landing toward the end of the 2020s, the first since the Apollo 17 mission in 1972. The ultimate goal of the Artemis program is to establish a permanent human presence on the Moon as a foundation for future exploration of Mars.