Artemis II splashdown: Astronauts return to Earth after lunar mission 

NASA’s Artemis II astronauts have safely splashed down on Earth, completing a landmark mission that carried humans around the Moon and back for the first time in more than 50 years.

The crew successfully completed a parachute landing on Friday in the Pacific Ocean, after a high-speed re-entry through Earth’s atmosphere. Recovery teams were off the coast of California, waiting to retrieve them after their arrival at 5:07pm Pacific time (00:07 GMT).

The four astronauts will now undergo medical checks before returning to NASA’s Johnson Space Center in Houston.

NASA crew members Reid Wiseman, Victor Glover and Christina Koch, together with Canadian astronaut Jeremy Hansen, began a 10-day voyage from Florida’s Kennedy Space Center last week, travelling farther into space than any human ever has.

They looped around the far side of the moon, testing equipment in deep space, before propelling back to Earth on Friday.

Their mission was the first to the moon since the 1972 Apollo 17 mission, and their return caps a mission packed with technical milestones.

Artemis II is widely seen as a critical test flight for future Moon missions, particularly Artemis IV, which aims to land astronauts on the lunar surface for the first time since the Apollo era.

Engineers will now analyse key data from the mission, including the performance of the Orion capsule’s heat shield as well as navigation systems and life-support technology, all essential for safely carrying humans deeper into space.

The return also included one of the most challenging phases of the journey: a brief communication blackout during re-entry, caused by intense heat building up around the spacecraft.

But on top of its record-setting distance, the mission also marked other historic firsts. Glover became the first person of colour to travel around the moon, Koch the first woman, and Hansen the first non-American.

During their journey, the crew reported in vivid detail features of the lunar surface and later witnessed a solar eclipse as well as meteorite impacts.

Mission commander Wiseman reflected that “what we really hoped in our soul is that we could, for just a moment, have the world pause — and remember that this is a beautiful planet in a very special place in our universe”.

“We should all cherish what we have been gifted.”

Every morning since the astronauts’ departure, NASA has sent a song to Artemis II to start the day. On Friday, the astronauts awoke to the tune of Live’s song Run to the Water and the country hit Free, by Zac Brown Band.