Kennedy Space Center hosted the Artemis II astronauts on Wednesday for their first reunion with the capsule since April’s lunar fly-around, three months after the mission set a human distance record.
252,756 miles from Earth marked the crew’s peak distance during humanity’s first trip to the moon in more than half a century, with commander Reid Wiseman saying public enthusiasm for the mission remains strong.
Next year’s Artemis III mission will send three NASA astronauts and one Italian into Earth orbit to rehearse docking with lunar landers being developed by SpaceX and Blue Origin.
Artemis IV is targeted as early as 2028 for a two-astronaut moon landing, while Canadian crew member Jeremy Hansen plans to leave the Canadian Space Agency in September but keep supporting Artemis through the Royal Canadian Air Force.
Is America's $4 billion per-launch 'Frankenstein' rocket a sustainable path to the Moon or a costly dead end?
With US moon landings delayed, is China poised to win the race for the Moon's valuable strategic resources?
How will NASA protect astronauts from deep space radiation that poses severe risks of cancer and organ failure?
Artemis II’s 2026 Lunar Flyby: Technical Triumphs, Global Unity, and the Path to a Permanent Human Presence on the Moon
Overview
The Artemis II mission ended with a successful splashdown of the Orion spacecraft in the Pacific Ocean off San Diego on April 10, 2026. The four-person crew—Jeremy Hansen, Victor Glover, Reid Wiseman, and Christina Koch—returned safely to Earth and were quickly met by the recovery team aboard the USS John P. Murtha. Before the crew exited, engineers performed additional tests on Orion while it was still in the water. This careful sequence of events ensured the crew’s safety and allowed for important data collection, marking a triumphant conclusion to their historic journey around the Moon.