The biggest story of the day belonged to the skies — or, more precisely, to the Pacific Ocean off San Diego, California. NASA’s Orion spacecraft carrying the four-person Artemis II crew completed its splashdown at 8:07 p.m. ET on Friday, capping a 10-day mission that included a historic flyby of the Moon.
Astronauts Christina Koch, Jeremy Hansen, Reid Wiseman, and Victor Glover endured a tense re-entry sequence that included six harrowing minutes of communications blackout as the capsule pierced Earth’s atmosphere. The Orion spacecraft had earlier completed its third and final return trajectory correction burn — a precise nine-second thruster firing to maintain the correct course home.
The mission, which carried humans around the Moon for the first time since the Apollo era, was streamed live on NASA’s YouTube channel and across major platforms including Netflix, Amazon Prime, Apple TV, and HBO Max. Costa Rica’s La Nación reported the splashdown was set for 6:07 p.m. local time, highlighting the mission’s truly global audience. The successful return sets the stage for Artemis III, which aims to land astronauts on the lunar surface.
