On Friday night, April 10th, 2026, NASA’s Artemis II returned from its 10 day mission circling the moon. They flew to the far side of the moon, allowing the crew hold the record for the furthest any humans from Earth have traveled. Four astronauts, Reid Wiseman (commander), Victor Glover (Pilot), Christina Koch, and Jeremy Hansen, launched on April 1st, 2026. This was the first human mission to return to deep space, since 1972 on the Apollo missions. This is just the beginning, Artemis II is really a test run for Artemis III that is projected to send humans to Mars in the 2030s.

At 8:07 on April 10th, the crew re-entered earth and landed in the Pacific ocean off the shore of San Diego, California. The extraction process took more than an hour, as they had to power off the ship for 15 minutes, have dive teams secure and reel in the parachutes, attach the “front porch” to the ship, and had three separate examinations to assess the astronaut’s health. There was a moment when we all held our breath, because the ship lost communication from NASA for 40 minutes. Luckily, all was well and the astronauts were safe. 

The ship, Orion CM-003 or more commonly referred to as Integrity, began being constructed in 2019. It costs NASA over $4 billion dollars per every launch. The whole production of the entire mission cost almost $93 billion dollars. 

After all this excitement, I’m sure the families and friends on the astronauts were relieved to have their loved one safely back on earth. It is a wonderful time to be alive, with so much technology and exciting expeditions on the books waiting to be put in motion.