NASA Artemis II lands in the Pacific Ocean in a ‘perfect’ landing for a moon mission

After 10 days, the four astronauts aboard the Orion spacecraft returned to Earth, and their mission around the moon was successful.

“Integrity,” the name of the crew spacecraft as part of NASA’s Artemis 2 mission, fell into the Pacific Ocean off the coast of San Diego, California, at 5:07 p.m. Pacific time, according to NASA. The four crew members on board – three Americans and one Canadian – were all in a “green” (or safe and healthy) state after Orion’s “perfect” landing.

The crew was composed of Commander Reed Wiseman, Pilot Victor Glover, and Mission Specialists Christina Koch and Jeremy Hansen. From liftoff to landing, the quartet stayed in space for just over nine days (with NASA billing it as a 10-day mission).

Artemis 2 was NASA’s first mission to lunar orbit in more than 50 years. The crew traveled farther from Earth than ever before, reaching an estimated 252,760 miles from our planet. During their journey, the crew orbited the Moon, took flyby photos of parts of the surface never seen before, and even witnessed a total solar eclipse. They identified new craters, naming them after Weisman’s wife, Carol, who died of cancer in 2020.

“These are the star ambassadors that we sent there,” NASA administrator Jared Isaacman said after the landing. “I can’t imagine a better crew. It was a perfect mission.”

Isaacman, a commercial astronaut who has participated in two special orbital missions, also went to X to celebrate the mission and noted that there will be more to come, indicating that America is back in business.

“America is back to sending astronauts to the moon and bringing them home safely,” he wrote on X, later giving credit to the entire NASA workforce. “This was a test mission, the first crewed flight of the SLS and Orion rovers, that ventured into the harsher space environment than ever before, and it came with real risks. They accepted that risk for all we were learning and for the exciting missions that followed, as we return to the lunar surface, build a lunar base, and prepare for what comes next.”