10-day mission marked first human voyage to moon in half century.
The Artemis II capsule and its four-member crew streaked through Earth's atmosphere and safely splashed down in the Pacific Ocean on Friday (local time) after nearly 10 days in space, capping the first voyage by humans to the vicinity of the moon in over half a century.
The splashdown, about two hours before sunset, was carried by live video feed in a NASA webcast.
At the flight's peak, the Artemis astronauts reached a point 252,756 miles from Earth, exceeding the previous record of roughly 248,000 miles set in 1970 by the crew of Apollo 13.
The ultimate goal of the Artemis program is to establish a long-term presence on the moon as a stepping stone to eventual human exploration of Mars.
Unlike the Apollo era, when the United States was racing to land astronauts on the moon ahead of the Soviet Union, the Artemis program is seeking to beat China.
As a result, NASA engineers altered the descent trajectory for Artemis II in order to reduce heat buildup and lower the risk of the capsule burning up. »