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The Orion capsule, aptly named Integrity, embarked on its descent journey, operating entirely on autopilot.
The atmosphere inside Mission Control was thick with anticipation as the capsule was enveloped in a fiery plasma during the peak of its reentry, leading to a scheduled communication silence.
Attention was riveted on the capsule’s heat shield, vital for enduring the intense heat of reentry, reaching temperatures of several thousand degrees.
During its initial test flight in 2022, which carried no crew, the heat shield returned with a surface marked with craters reminiscent of the moon’s landscape.
Jeff Radigan, the lead flight director, like many, was bracing himself for the inevitable “irrational fear that is human nature,” especially during the tense six-minute period before the parachutes deployed.
The recovery ship USS John P. Murtha awaited the crew’s arrival off the San Diego coast, along with a squadron of military planes and helicopters.
The astronauts’ families huddled in Mission Control’s viewing room, where cheers erupted when the capsule emerged from its communication blackout and again at splashdown.
The last time NASA and the Defence Department teamed up for a lunar crew’s reentry was Apollo 17 in 1972.
Artemis II was projected to come screaming back at 11,025 metres per second, 39,668km/h, just shy of the record before slowing to a 30km/h splashdown.
“A perfect bull’s-eye splashdown,” reported Mission Control’s Rob Navias.
Artemis II’s record flyby and lunar views
Launched from Florida on April 1, the astronauts racked up one win after another as they deftly navigated NASA’s long-awaited lunar comeback, the first major step in establishing a sustainable moon base.
Artemis II didn’t land on the moon or even orbit it.
But it broke Apollo 13’s distance record, making Wiseman and his crew the farthest that humans have ever journeyed from Earth when they reached 406,771 kilometres.
Then, in the mission’s most heart-tugging scene, the teary astronauts asked permission to name a pair of craters after their moonship and Wiseman’s late wife, Carroll.
During the record-breaking flyby, they documented scenes of the lunar far side never seen before by the naked eye and savoured a total solar eclipse courtesy of the cosmos thanks to their launch date.
The eclipse, in particular, “just blew all of us away,” Glover said.
Their sense of wonder and love awed everyone, as did their breathtaking pictures of the moon and Earth. The Artemis II crew channelled Apollo 8’s first lunar explorers with Earthset, showing our blue marble setting behind the grey moon.
It was reminiscent of Apollo 8’s famous Earthrise shot from 1968.
“It just makes you want to continue to go back,” Radigan said on the eve of splashdown.
“It’s the first of many trips, and we just need to continue because there’s so much more to learn about the moon.”
Artemis II was a test flight for future moon missions
Despite its rich scientific yield, the nearly 10-day flight was not without technical issues.
Both the capsule’s drinking water and propellant systems were hit with valve problems.
In perhaps the most high-profile predicament, toilet trouble prevented the crew from using it for number one’s most of the trip, forcing them to resort to old-time bags and funnels.
The astronauts shrugged it all off.
“We can’t explore deeper unless we are doing a few things that are inconvenient,” Koch said, “unless we’re making a few sacrifices, unless we’re taking a few risks, and those things are all worth it.”
Added Hansen: “You do a lot of testing on the ground, but your final test is when you get this hardware to space, and it’s a doozy.”
Under the revamped Artemis program, next year’s Artemis III will see astronauts practice docking their capsule with a lunar lander or two in orbit around Earth. Artemis IV will attempt to land a crew of two near the moon’s south pole in 2028.
The Artemis II crew’s allegiance was to those next Artemis crews, Wiseman said.
“But 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 and a very special place in our universe, and we should all cherish what we have been gifted,” he said.
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