CALGARY — The NASA Artemis II mission has successfully returned to Earth, with its Orion spacecraft splashing down in the Pacific Ocean southwest of San Diego, California, on Friday, marking the end of the historic journey.The capsule re-entered Earth’s atmosphere on Friday afternoon at speeds approaching 40,000 km/h, as its heat shield protected the four-person crew during the fiery descent.Splash down occurred at 5:07:27 p.m. PDT, bringing the ten-day mission to a safe conclusion.Mission commander Reid Wiseman confirmed that all astronauts were in good health following splash down.Canadian Jeremy Hansen has made history as the first Canadian astronaut on a lunar mission alongside his three American colleagues (Wiseman, Victor Glover, and Christina Koch) as the crew travelled deeper into space than any humans since the Apollo era..Artemis II — the first crewed mission of NASA’s Artemis program — has been touted as a test flight ahead of future missions that aim to return humanity to the Moon.The crew conducted a lunar flyby of the Moon as well as gathered important scientific data during the flight.Recovery operations began immediately after splashdown, with US Navy helicopters and the amphibious transport ship USS John P. Murtha (LPD-26) deployed to retrieve the crew.NASA Administrator Jared Isaacman told the media that he had been waiting his “whole lifetime to see this.”“I just couldn't be more proud of the entire workforce, the years, the effort, the late nights, all the hard work from across the country that contributed to this incredible moment,” Isaacman said, adding that the mission was a huge accomplishment for humanity.“This is just the beginning. We are going to get back into doing this with frequency, sending missions to the Moon until we land on it in 2028 and start building our base,” he said.“There is a lot to celebrate right now on a mission well accomplished for Artemis II, and at the same time, we gotta start getting ready for III.”
