After 10 days, 695,000 miles, and a record-breaking lunar flyby, NASA’s four-person crew is splashing down in the Pacific tonight. Here’s why the whole country is watching.
There’s something quietly thrilling about a moonshot that actually works. After a decade of setbacks, budget fights, and two years of intense training, NASA’s Artemis II crew Commander Reid Wiseman, pilot Victor Glover, mission specialists Christina Koch and Canadian astronaut Jeremy Hansen are scheduled to splash down just off the coast of San Diego tonight at 5:07 p.m. local time.
The mission, which launched from Kennedy Space Center in Florida on April 1, covered a jaw-dropping 695,081 miles and included a historic close approach within 4,070 miles of the lunar surface. On April 6, the crew officially broke the record set by Apollo 13 in 1970, traveling farther from Earth than any human beings ever had 252,760 miles from home.
“We can help inspire, educate, get them excited those young boys and girls who are really going to be those next generations.” — San Diego Air & Space Museum Director
The return journey is no less dramatic. The Orion capsule will re-enter Earth’s atmosphere at nearly 24,000 mph, subjecting the crew to up to 3.9 Gs before a series of parachute deployments slow it to a manageable 17 mph at splashdown. Southern California residents may actually hear a sonic boom as the spacecraft blazes across the sky between 5:00–5:15 p.m.
San Diego, a city with deep Navy roots, has taken this homecoming personally. The USS John P. Murtha will serve as the primary recovery vessel, with Navy MH-60 Seahawk helicopters standing by to extract the crew within two hours of splashdown. Along the coastline, thousands of locals and out-of-towners are expected to gather to witness a moment that, by any measure, is a genuine milestone for humanity’s return to deep space exploration.
This is the first time humans have returned from the Moon’s vicinity since the Apollo 17 mission in December 1972 over 53 years ago. And if all goes to plan, Artemis III could see boots on the lunar surface by 2028.
