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For the first time in more than 50 years, astronauts who have journeyed to the Moon are coming home — and the next giant leap has already begun.

On the evening of Friday, April 10, 2026, NASA's Orion spacecraft is set to splash down off the coast of San Diego at approximately 8:07 p.m. EDT — completing a 10-day, 695,081-mile journey around the Moon and back. Commander Reid Wiseman, Pilot Victor Glover, and Mission Specialists Christina Koch and Jeremy Hansen will become the first humans to return from the lunar vicinity since the crew of Apollo 17 splashed down in December 1972. A half-century of waiting, and tonight the Pacific opens its arms.

Farther Than Any Human Has Gone Before

On April 6th, as Orion swung through its lunar flyby — coming within 4,070 miles of the Moon's surface — the crew quietly made history. At 1:56 p.m. EDT, they reached 252,760 miles from Earth, surpassing the distance record set by the imperiled crew of Apollo 13 in 1970, a mark that had stood for 56 years. Mission Control's capsule communicator, Jenni Gibbons, radioed up the moment: "Today, for all humanity, you're pushing beyond that frontier." Commander Wiseman's response captured the spirit of the entire program: "We most importantly choose this moment to challenge this generation and the next to make sure this record is not long-lived."

Every mile beyond Earth's magnetic field was also a mile of science. The Artemis II crew carried dosimeters to measure radiation exposure in real time, while monitors throughout the Orion capsule gathered continuous data on cosmic rays and solar energetic particles — information that has never been gathered with humans this far from home at this level of precision. The crew also provided saliva samples to track how the immune system responds to deep space, and conducted drills to shelter themselves from solar radiation events. This is the research that will one day send humans to Mars: understanding not just how spacecraft survive deep space, but how people do.

The Orion spacecraft descending under parachutes toward splashdown in the Pacific Ocean off San Diego

The Orion capsule descends under parachutes toward the Pacific Ocean off San Diego on April 10, 2026, completing humanity's first crewed journey to the lunar vicinity in more than 50 years.

History has always marked its milestones with splashdowns: Friendship 7 in 1962, Apollo 11 in 1969, the final handshake of the Apollo-Soyuz mission in 1975. Tonight's moment belongs in that company. The Artemis program is not a nostalgia trip — it is a bridge. Every test result from this mission feeds the next lunar landing, and every data point on radiation and human endurance draws the road to Mars a little clearer. When recovery teams lift Wiseman, Glover, Koch, and Hansen from the Pacific, they will be carrying with them knowledge that no human being has ever carried home before. That is what tonight is.