Artemis 2 Ends Successfully in Historic Return to Earth

By Tahani Elghazaly
Published April 10, 2026

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NASA’s Artemis 2 mission ended successfully on Friday, April 10, 2026, when the Orion spacecraft splashed down in the Pacific Ocean off San Diego at 8:07 p.m. EDT. The crew included NASA astronauts Reid Wiseman, Victor Glover, and Christina Koch, along with Canadian Space Agency astronaut Jeremy Hansen, who returned safely after the first crewed lunar flyby of the Artemis era.

The mission launched on April 1, 2026 aboard NASA’s Space Launch System (SLS) from Kennedy Space Center in Florida. It was the first crewed flight of the Artemis program and a critical test of Orion, human deep-space operations, and life-support systems ahead of future missions aimed at establishing a longer-term human return to the Moon and eventually supporting missions to Mars. The flight lasted 9 days, 1 hour, and 32 minutes.

During the mission, the crew broke the record for the farthest distance humans have ever traveled from Earth, surpassing the mark set by Apollo 13 in 1970. The flight also became the first crewed mission to the Moon since 1972, restoring human lunar exploration to the center of global space ambitions after more than five decades.

The mission also carried special significance for Canada. Jeremy Hansen became the first Canadian to take part in a lunar mission, underlining Canada’s growing role in Artemis and the international partnerships behind it. The Canadian Space Agency said the crew reached 406,773 kilometres from Earth, the farthest distance ever traveled by humans.