The Artemis II mission, the first crewed test flight under NASA’s Artemis program, saw four astronauts fly aboard NASA’s Orion spacecraft around the Moon and back. The crew includes NASA astronauts Reid Wiseman, Victor Glover, Christina Koch, and Canadian Space Agency astronaut Jeremy Hansen. This approximately 10-day journey around the Moon included launch, a lunar flyby, and a safe splashdown off the coast of San Diego. The mission tests how the spacecraft’s systems operate in a deep space environment, marking a stepping stone towards future Moon and Mars missions.
The crew lifted off at 6:35 p.m. EDT on April 1 from launch pad 39B at Kennedy Space Center in Florida. The mission blasted off from Cape Canaveral on April 1, with the crew expected to travel a total of 695,081 miles from launch to splashdown. Multiple reports indicate the mission flew a total of 694,481 miles, with the crew traveling 252,756 miles from Earth. The spacecraft reached a maximum distance of 252,757 miles from Earth, about 4,102 miles farther than Apollo 13. The Artemis II mission's spacecraft, Orion, broke the record for human travel at about 13:56 EDT (18:56 BST) on Monday, beating a record of 248,655 miles held since 1970 by the Apollo 13 mission.
During the lunar flyby, the spacecraft passed within 4,066 miles of the lunar surface during its closest approach. The crew lost contact with the Earth, as expected, for 40 minutes as they travelled behind the Moon. Soon afterwards the spacecraft dipped to within a few thousand miles of the lunar surface, and the crew witnessed a total eclipse of the Sun as the Moon blocked out its light. As the spacecraft approached and the Moon swelled in its windows, the astronauts began working through a checklist of things to record on its surface. The astronauts took images with an array of digital cameras and, as NASA had briefed, made sketches and recorded their own audio descriptions of what they saw. The spacecraft was not planning to land on the Moon but fly around its far side, the side which is never visible from Earth. Satellites have photographed the far side before, but the astronauts were the first human eyes to see some parts of the far side's surface and its vast craters and lava plains.
The most critical part of the journey is when the spacecraft re-enters Earth's atmosphere.
An emotional moment occurred when the crew named a crater after Commander Reid Wiseman's late wife, Carroll Taylor Wiseman. Fellow astronaut Jeremy Hansen made a request to NASA mission control to name two craters they observed on the Moon both with their naked eye and with their long lens. One crater they asked to be called Integrity - the name the astronauts gave to the Orion capsule they are travelling in. The other request was to commemorate Wiseman's late wife Carroll, who died in 2020 of cancer. The four astronauts were seen hugging on the live feed from their capsule after the request.
The most critical part of the journey was re-entry, which involves the Orion capsule traveling at speeds up to 23,839 mph. According to Sveriges Radio Nyheter, Linn Bolt-Christmas, an astrophysicist at Uppsala University, described the re-entry as the most critical part of the journey. Re-entry temperatures can reach up to 1600 degrees Celsius, though other reports cite temperatures up to 2,760°C (5,000°F). A heat shield protects the crew during re-entry, and communications are blocked during re-entry due to plasma buildup. The Orion crew module separates from the service module before re-entry, with the service module burning up in the atmosphere. Officials are anxious about the re-entry process, and Jeff Radigan noted the re-entry angle must be precise, with less than a degree of error. According to Sveriges Radio Nyheter, Linn Bolt-Christmas also described that if they succeed in the re-entry, the entire mission is a total success.
The splashdown occurred off the coast of San Diego, California, around 5:07 pm PT (8:07 pm ET) on Friday, April 10. The USS John P Murtha assisted with recovery operations, which take between an hour and an hour and a half. Parachutes deploy to slow the capsule before splashdown, and there is a keep-out zone for public safety during splashdown due to debris. The crew reviewed weather briefings and recovery status before re-entry. Following splashdown, recovery teams retrieved the crew using helicopters and delivered them to the USS John P. Murtha. The crew walked across the deck of the USS John P Murtha after landing, refusing wheelchairs.
If they succeed in the re-entry, the entire mission is a total success.
Once aboard, the astronauts were picked up by navy officers on the USS John P. Murtha for medical treatment. They underwent post-mission medical evaluations in the ship’s medical bay before traveling back to shore to meet with an aircraft bound for NASA’s Johnson Space Center in Houston. The specific medical issues identified during these evaluations have not been disclosed.
Artemis II astronauts put the Orion spacecraft through a series of planned tests to evaluate systems, procedures, and performance in deep space. They conducted manual spacecraft operations and monitored automated activities, evaluating Orion’s life-support, propulsion, and other systems. Orion's thrusters ignited for trajectory correction burns during the mission. The exact findings from these system tests in the deep space environment have not yet been released.
The mission has provided useful experience for future space travel, according to Jonas Appelberg. It marks a stepping stone towards future Moon and Mars missions, with multiple reports indicating the data collected will influence future planning. How this data will directly influence the planning and design of future Moon and Mars missions remains to be fully analyzed.
We saw sights that no human has ever seen, not even Apollo, and that was amazing for us.
Public engagement was high throughout the mission, with real-time coverage continuing on NASA’s YouTube channel. NASA provided a separate live stream of views from the Orion spacecraft as bandwidth allowed, as well as inside the capsule, and provided the latest mission imagery online. Daily mission status briefings were held live from Johnson Space Center in Houston through splashdown, except for Monday, April 6, due to lunar flyby activities. A list of activities was regularly updated online, and the crew participated in live conversations throughout the mission, which were scheduled prior to their departure from Earth. NASA provided the exact times of each downlink event and the latest mission coverage on the Artemis blog, and updates on splashdown were available on NASA’s website and in daily news conferences.
Political reactions included Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney congratulating the crew. President Trump asked the four astronauts what the most unforgettable part of their day had been, and in a public speech called the mission spectacular and said it made all America proud.
Technical details included the crew's kit having two professional digital SLR cameras – one fitted with a wide‑angle lens. Orion's thrusters ignited for trajectory correction burns, as reported by multiple sources.
The post-mission medical evaluations have concluded, but the specific findings have not been made public. Similarly, the detailed results of the manual spacecraft operations and system performance metrics, including the heat shield's technical specifications during re-entry, are still under review by NASA engineers.
The mission data is now being analyzed, and its full impact on future mission planning for the Moon and Mars is yet to be determined. NASA officials have indicated that the experience gained will be invaluable, but the precise adjustments to future spacecraft design and mission protocols will be outlined in forthcoming reports.