Record-Breaking Artemis II Crew Safely Splashes Down in Pacific

NASA's Artemis II mission successfully wrapped up Friday as the Orion capsule, dubbed Integrity, safely splashed down in the Pacific Ocean off the Southern California coast.

The 10-day mission took four astronauts on a historic flyby of the moon traveling further into deep space than any previous crew and breaking the long-standing Apollo 13 distance record.

The history-making crew which included the first woman, the first person of color, and the first non-U.S. citizen on a lunar flight endured a fiery 5,000°F re-entry before being safely recovered by U.S. Navy teams.

This successful high-stakes test of the capsule's heat shield and recovery systems marks a major milestone in NASA's broader goal of returning humans to the lunar surface by 2028.