San Diego, California
This Friday, April 10, 2026, humanity celebrates the successful return of the Artemis II mission. After 10 days of travel and more than 690,000 kilometers traveled, NASA’s Orion capsule will land off the coast of San Diego, California, marking the end of the first manned mission to the Moon in more than half a century.
The return home was the most critical and dangerous phase of the mission. The Orion spacecraft reentered the Earth’s atmosphere at a speed close to 40,000 km/h.
During this process, air friction raised the temperature of the heat shield to 2,700 degrees Celsius, generating a layer of plasma that disrupted communications for about six minutes.
After overcoming the extreme heat, a sequence of 11 parachutes deployed to slow the capsule. The final impact in the Pacific Ocean occurred at 5:07 pm (San Diego local time), with a speed of just 32 km/h.
Four astronauts who have made history return aboard Orion: Reid Wiseman (Commander), Victor Glover (Pilot), Christina Koch (Mission Specialist) and Jeremy Hansen (Mission Specialist – Canada).
They are now the first humans to have orbited the Moon since the Apollo program in 1972, also breaking distance records by moving further from Earth than any other human in history during their passage through the far side of the satellite.
A scientific and visual legacyDuring the mission, the crew captured high-resolution images of the lunar surface and the iconic “Earthset” (the hiding of the Earth behind the lunar horizon), images that have gone around the world and will be used for future research.
After Artemis II, what’s next for NASA?
The success of Artemis II clears the way for the Artemis III mission, scheduled for September 2026, which aims to make the first manned lunar landing at the South Pole, leading to the first woman to set foot on the surface of our natural satellite.
