Cosmic Log

Four astronauts and their Orion space capsule splashed down in the Pacific Ocean today, bringing the first crewed trip around the moon and back since 1972 to a successful end.

“What a journey!” mission commander Reid Wiseman said moments after splashdown.

During their 10-day odyssey, the crew of NASA’s Artemis 2 mission — Wiseman, pilot Victor Glover, mission specialist Christina Koch and Canadian astronaut Jeremy Hansen — became the most distant human travelers in history, swinging more than 4,000 miles past the moon’s far side. Koch is the first woman to venture beyond Earth orbit, Glover is the first Black astronaut to do so, and Hansen is the first non-U.S. astronaut to make such a trip.

The flight tested the Artemis program’s hardware and procedures to prepare the way for sending astronauts all the way to the lunar surface by as early as 2028, and for building a lunar base in the 2030s.

“It’s the most important human spaceflight mission I think we’ve done in many decades, in terms of what it meant historically, but also what it means for the future of the agency,” NASA Associate Administrator Amit Kshatriya said at a post-splashdown news conference.

Orion’s hardware — including components built in the Seattle area — came through when it counted. Two sets of thrusters for Orion were built by L3Harris’ Aerojet Rocketdyne team in Redmond, Wash., while mechanisms that were made by Karman Space & Defense in Mukilteo, Wash., facilitated the safe deployment of Orion’s parachutes in the mission’s final minutes.

NASA calculated that Orion traveled 700,237 miles in all, from its launch atop a massive Space Launch System rocket on April 1 to its splashdown off the coast of California at 5:07 p.m. PT.

The crew of NASA’s round-the-moon test mission crossed the halfway point between the moon and Earth today on their homeward journey — and they’re picking up speed as they zero in on a spot off the coast of California for a live-streamed splashdown on April 10.

At the end of what so far has been a successful Artemis 2 mission, the astronauts are counting on the Orion space capsule’s propulsion system, heat shield and parachutes to work perfectly.

“We’re going to come into the atmosphere at almost 40 times the speed of sound, and then we will slow down to a 20-mile-an-hour touchdown into the Pacific,” NASA pilot Victor Glover told members of Congress today during a space-to-ground Q&A. “The heat shield and the parachutes are going to get us nice and slow. … We can’t wait to see the dive team and the Navy that are going to pick us up.”

Glover and his crewmates — mission commander Reid Wiseman, mission specialist Christina Koch and Canadian astronaut Jeremy Hansen — have been testing Orion’s systems during a mission aimed at preparing the way for a lunar landing that could take place as early as 2028. Their 10-day trip is the first time humans have gone around the moon since Apollo 17 in 1972.

Artemis 2 lead flight director Jeff Radigan was asked during a news briefing how Orion’s entry and descent would compare with the “Seven Minutes of Terror” experienced by NASA’s Curiosity rover during its 2012 Mars landing.

“It’s 13 minutes of things that have to go right,” said Radigan, referring to the time period between the start of atmospheric entry and splashdown. Then he amended his remarks. “It’s not 13 minutes,” he said. “It’s an hour and a half of things that have to go right.”

Four astronauts today became the first humans to make a trip around the moon since the Apollo era — and added new pages to history books for the Artemis era.

The Artemis 2 crew reached a maximum distance of 252,756 miles from Earth, surpassing the distance record for human travel that was set during the Apollo 13 mission in 1970 by more than 4,000 miles.

NASA astronaut Christina Koch marked the occasion in a radio transmission from NASA’s Orion space capsule, named Integrity. “We most importantly choose this moment to challenge this generation and the next to make sure this record is not long-lived,” she said.

Koch made history as the first woman to travel beyond Earth orbit. One of her crewmates, NASA pilot Victor Glover, is the first Black astronaut to take a moon trip, and Canadian astronaut Jeremy Hansen is the first non-U.S. astronaut to do so.

The main purpose of the 10-day Artemis 2 mission is to serve as an initial crewed test flight for the Orion spacecraft, which traced a similar round-the-moon course during the uncrewed Artemis 1 mission in 2022. A successful Artemis 2 mission will prepare the way for a lunar lander test flight in Earth orbit as early as next year, potentially followed in 2028 by the first crewed moon landing since Apollo.

Seattle-area tech workers have played a role in getting Orion off the ground — and bringing it back home. L3Harris’ Aerojet Rocketdyne facility in Redmond worked on the spacecraft’s main engine and some of its thrusters, while Karman Space Systems’ Mukilteo facility provided mechanisms for Orion’s parachute deployment system and emergency hatch release system.

Artemis 2’s flight plan took advantage of orbital mechanics and a precisely timed firing of Orion’s main engine to send the astronauts on a free-return trip around the moon and back. The moon’s gravitational pull caused Orion to make a crucial U-turn around the far side, at a minimum distance of 4,067 miles from the lunar surface, and then slingshot back toward Earth.