HOUSTON (NEXSTAR/AP) – Artemis II’s voyage into space came to an exciting conclusion Friday with a splashdown in the Pacific Ocean. They victoriously returned to NASA Johnson Space Center in Houston on Saturday for a special post-orbit event.
The crew returning are NASA astronauts Reid Wiseman, Victor Glover and Christina Koch, as well as Jeremy Hansen with the Canadian Space Agency. The Artemis II team was welcomed with applause at the exclusive event, and honored for their voyage, the first in half a century.
The team’s Orion capsule, dubbed “Integrity,” splashed down at 5:07 p.m. PT Friday, about 60 miles off the coast of San Diego.
Commander Reid Wiseman and his U.S.-Canadian crew’s homecoming was poignant: They returned to their Houston home base on the 56th anniversary of the launch of Apollo 13, whose “Houston, we’ve had a problem” refrain turned a near-disaster into triumph.
“This was not easy.” Wiseman said. “Before you launch, it feels like it’s the greatest dream on Earth. And when you’re out there, you just want to get back to your families and your friends. It’s a special thing to be a human and it’s a special thing to be on planet Earth.”
Referring to his wife and four daughters, pilot Victor Glover said: “I love you but not just those five beautiful cocoa skinned ladies there, but all of you.”
Christina Koch said she was struck by her view of Earth from space.
“Honestly, what struck me wasn’t necessarily just Earth, it was all the blackness around it. Earth was just this lifeboat hanging undisturbedly in the universe,” she said. “Planet Earth you are a crew.”
Fellow astronaut Canada’s Jeremy Hansen thanked the bravery of the launch teams to be “no-go” all the times they were, referring to the months of delay.
In this image provided by NASA, the Artemis II crew, clockwise from left, Mission Specialist Christina Koch, Mission Specialist Jeremy Hansen, Commander Reid Wiseman, and Pilot Victor Glover, pause for a group photo inside the Orion spacecraft on their way home on Wednesday, April 7, 2026. (NASA via AP)
Hansen said the crew embodied love “and extracting joy out of that” as the four joined together to stand in a row, embracing one another. “When you look up here, you’re not looking at us. We are a mirror reflecting you. And if you like what you see then just look a little deeper This is you.”
Canadian Space Agency President Lisa Campbell called the mission “a powerful moment.” She told Hansen he represents “the best of what it means to be Canadian.”
During Artemis II’s nearly 10-day mission, they voyaged deeper into space than the moon explorers of decades past and captured views of the lunar far side never witnessed before by human eyes. A total solar eclipse added to the cosmic wonder.
On their record-breaking flyby, the astronauts reached a maximum 252,756 miles (406,771 kilometers) from Earth before hanging a U-turn behind the moon, eclipsing Apollo’s 13 distance record.
The mission also revealed a new side of our planet with an Earthset photo, showing our Blue Marble setting behind the gray, pockmarked moon. The image echoed the famous Earthrise shot from 1968 taken by the world’s first lunar visitors, Apollo 8.
Despite the accomplishments, Artemis II astronauts had to contend with a more mundane problem — a malfunctioning space toilet. NASA promised a design fix before longer moon-landing missions.
Wiseman, Glover, Koch and Hansen were the first humans to fly to the moon since Apollo 17 closed out NASA’s first exploration era in 1972. Twenty-four astronauts flew to the moon during Apollo, including 12 moonwalkers.
Apollo 13 commander Jim Lovell — who also flew on Apollo 8 — cheered the Artemis II crew on in a wake-up message recorded before he died last summer.
It was crucial for NASA that Artemis II go well. The space agency is already preparing for next year’s Artemis III, which will see a new crew practice docking its capsule with a lunar lander in orbit around Earth. That will set the stage for the all-important Artemis IV moon landing in 2028, when two astronauts attempt a touchdown near the lunar south pole.
