10 Days, 695,000 Miles, One Record: Artemis II Comes Home Tonight and Changes What Comes Next

Artemis II launched from Kennedy Space Center on April 1 at 6:35 p.m. EDT, carrying NASA astronauts Reid Wiseman, Victor Glover and Christina Koch, and Canadian Space Agency astronaut Jeremy Hansen aboard the Orion spacecraft atop the Space Launch System rocket. Splashdown is targeted for 8:07 p.m. EDT tonight, April 10, approximately 60 miles off the coast of San Diego — ending a 10-day mission that covered 695,081 total miles. On Day 6, April 6, the crew passed 248,655 miles from Earth, surpassing the record previously set by Apollo 13 in 1970. Orion reached a peak distance of 252,756 miles and flew within 4,067 miles of the lunar surface during its closest approach — the first humans to come that close to the Moon since Apollo 17 in 1972. Throughout the mission, the crew tested manual spacecraft operations, life support, propulsion, power, thermal control, navigation and habitability systems. Flight controllers canceled one correction burn outbound because Orion was already on course. The crew handled a communications blackout while passing behind the Moon — a critical test for future deep-space operations. They also photographed a solar eclipse visible only from their position, one that could not be seen from Earth. The human moments were just as significant. Astronaut Jeremy Hansen named a lunar crater Carroll in memory of commander Reid Wiseman's wife, who died of cancer in 2020. Wiseman called it the most profound moment of the flight. President Trump spoke with the crew live after the lunar flyby. Reentry tonight is one of the most technically risky phases. Orion will enter the atmosphere at roughly 24,000 miles per hour, endure temperatures of around 2,800 degrees Celsius, and pass through a 6-minute communications blackout beginning at 7:53 p.m. as plasma forms around the capsule. Because of known heat shield concerns discovered during the uncrewed Artemis I flight in 2022, NASA modified the reentry path to a steeper angle to reduce exposure time to peak heat. At 8:03 p.m., drogue parachutes deploy at 22,000 feet, followed by three main parachutes at 6,000 feet, before splashdown. The recovery plan involves four helicopters, six small boats and the USS John P. Murtha. The crew will be extracted one by one, flown to the ship by helicopter, undergo post-flight medical evaluations aboard the medical bay, and then fly to NASA Johnson Space Center in Houston. The astronauts will spend days to weeks in physical rehabilitation readjusting to Earth's gravity, with bone density checks, cardiovascular testing and muscle recovery protocols standard after any deep-space mission. NASA Administrator Jared Isaacman will be aboard the Murtha for the recovery. Next steps for the Artemis program: NASA's roadmap now points to Artemis III in 2027 as a systems test in low Earth orbit involving commercial lunar landers, and Artemis IV as the first crewed Moon landing, targeted for 2028 — the year China is also aiming for a lunar landing. Artemis II did not land on the Moon. But it proved the hardware works, the crew can survive deep space, and America's path back to the lunar surface is no longer a promise. It is a schedule.