{"id":1422,"date":"2026-04-11T11:38:00","date_gmt":"2026-04-11T03:38:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/obagg.com\/index.php\/2026\/04\/11\/the-artemis-ii-astronauts-are-back-after-a-10-day-journey-around-the-moon\/"},"modified":"2026-04-11T11:38:00","modified_gmt":"2026-04-11T03:38:00","slug":"the-artemis-ii-astronauts-are-back-after-a-10-day-journey-around-the-moon","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/obagg.com\/index.php\/2026\/04\/11\/the-artemis-ii-astronauts-are-back-after-a-10-day-journey-around-the-moon\/","title":{"rendered":"The Artemis II astronauts are back after a 10-day journey around the moon"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Orion capsule carrying the Artemis II<\/a> astronauts has successfully splashed down<\/a> off the coast of San Diego at 8:07PM Eastern time on April 10. It signals the conclusion of Artemis II\u2019s 10-day journey around the moon, which is meant to be a test flight for a future mission that would bring humanity back<\/a> to the lunar surface. The Orion crew module carrying the mission\u2019s astronauts separated from the service module at 7:33 PM. While the service module was designed to burn up in the Earth\u2019s atmosphere, the crew capsule was built to bring the astronauts back home safely. <\/p>\n

By 7:53 PM, Orion reached our planet\u2019s upper atmosphere, where a six-minute communication blackout occurred due to the capsule heating up as it started its guided descent. The capsule has 11 parachutes, with its drogue parachutes being deployed at 23,400 feet to stabilize and slow it down. When Orion reached 5,400 feet above the ground, the drogue parachutes were cut off so that the three main parachutes could be deployed. That decreased the capsule\u2019s velocity to 200 feet per second, enabling a safe splashdown. <\/p>\n

NASA\u2019s engineers conducted several tests while the capsule was in the water before the recovery team headed to the capsule on inflatable boats to extract the crew from Orion. By 9:34 PM, all four crew members were out of the capsule. They were then hoisted into helicopters and flown to the USS John P. Murtha dock ship, where doctors will assess their health. <\/p>\n

Artemis II launched on April 1 with four astronauts on board: NASA\u2019s Reid Wiseman, Victor Glover and Christina Koch, as well as Canadian Space Agency\u2019s Jeremy Hansen. They traveled around the moon for almost 10 days, reaching distances<\/a> no other crewed mission has before it. The astronauts took photos of the far side of the moon<\/a>, the side we don\u2019t see from our planet, including amazing closeups of the lunar surface<\/a> using their smartphones. That makes them the first humans to directly and personally view the lunar far side. <\/p>\n

During NASA\u2019s post-splashdown news conference, the agency said it will announce the Artemis III crew soon. Artemis III will rendezvous with one or both commercial landers being developed by SpaceX and Blue Origin in low Earth orbit, which will take humans to the lunar surface. It will test the lander\u2019s ability to dock with Orion before NASA lands humans on the moon again. <\/p>\n

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Welcome home Reid, Victor, Christina, and Jeremy! \ud83e\udef6<\/p>\n

The Artemis II astronauts have splashed down at 8:07pm ET (0007 UTC April 11), bringing their historic 10-day mission around the Moon to an end. pic.twitter.com\/1yjAgHEOYl<\/a><\/p>\n

\u2014 NASA (@NASA) April 11, 2026<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<\/div>\n

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https:\/\/www.engadget.com\/science\/space\/the-artemis-ii-astronauts-are-back-after-a-10-day-journey-around-the-moon-033800654.html?src=rss<\/p>

Please credit: OBA Blog<\/a> » The Artemis II astronauts are back after a 10-day journey around the moon<\/a><\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Orion capsule carrying the Artemis II astronauts has successfully splashed down off the coast of San Diego at 8:07PM Eastern time on April 10. It signals the conclusion of Artemis II\u2019s 10-day journey around the moon, which is meant to be a test flight for a future mission that would bring humanity back to the lunar surface. The Orion crew module carrying the mission\u2019s astronauts separated from the service module at 7:33 PM. While the service module was designed to burn up in the Earth\u2019s atmosphere, the crew capsule was built to bring the astronauts back home safely. By 7:53 PM, Orion reached our planet\u2019s upper atmosphere, where a six-minute communication blackout occurred due to the capsule heating up as it started its guided […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1422","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-share"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/obagg.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1422","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/obagg.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/obagg.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/obagg.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/obagg.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1422"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/obagg.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1422\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/obagg.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1422"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/obagg.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1422"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/obagg.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1422"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}