'Welcome home, Artemis': Crew celebrates historic 10-day moon mission

After their historic lunar flyby, the crew safely splashed down in the Pacific.

ByMary Kekatos, Julia Jacobo, Leah Sarnoff, Ivan Pereira, and Meredith Deliso
Last Updated: April 11, 2026, 5:12 PM EDT

NASA's Artemis II mission lifted off on April 1 at 6:35 p.m. ET from the Kennedy Space Center in Florida.

The four-person crew completed a 695,081-mile, 10-day journey around the moon, also known as a lunar fly-by.

A "textbook" splashdown took place at 8:07 p.m. ET on Friday, April 10.

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Here's how the news is developing.
Apr 01, 2026, 5:59 AM EDT

Artemis II scheduled to launch today

NASA's Artemis II mission is scheduled to launch today between 6:24 p.m. ET and 8:24 p.m. ET from Florida's Kennedy Space Center Launch Complex 39B.

The crew of four astronauts – mission commander Reid Weisman, mission pilot Victor J. Glover Jr., and mission specialists Christina Koch and Jeremy Hansen – will board the Orion crew capsule, dubbed Integrity, atop the SLS (Space Launch System) rocket for a more than 600,000-mile, 10-day journey around the moon to test critical spacecraft systems ahead of the Artemis IV mission, which is intended to land astronauts near the moon's South Pole, a region never explored by humans, in 2028.

Astronauts Reid Wiseman, Victor Glover, Christina Koch and Jeremy Hansen stop for a group photo during a visit to NASA's Artemis II SLS rocket and Orion spacecraft, March 30, 2026, at Launch Complex 39B of NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Fla.
Bill Ingalls/NASA/AFP via Getty Images

At mission's end, Orion will splash down in the Pacific Ocean, off the coast of San Diego, with recovery operations conducted by the U.S. Navy and NASA.

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