NASA's Artemis II crew is back on Earth after a nearly 10-day flight around the Moon. Reid Wiseman, Victor Glover, Christina Koch and Canadian astronaut Jeremy Hansen splashed down off California after the first crewed lunar mission since Apollo.
The test was the point
Artemis II did not land on the Moon. It was built to test the full crewed route: launch on the Space Launch System, fly Orion around the Moon, keep four people alive in deep space and recover them safely at sea.
NASA says the spacecraft travelled 694,481 miles and reached 252,756 miles from Earth at its farthest point. That puts the crew beyond the Apollo 13 distance record and gives Artemis a clear first human milestone.
What the crew checked
During the flight the astronauts tested manual flying, spacesuit procedures, emergency gear, exercise routines and human research experiments. They also took thousands of photos during the lunar flyby, including views of the Moon's surface, old lava flows, impact craters and Earth from deep space.
Those details matter because Artemis III is supposed to be harder. That mission will need Orion, lander systems and lunar surface operations to work together. Artemis II showed the basic journey can be done with people on board: leave Earth, loop around the Moon and come home.
It does not make the next landing easy, but it gives NASA something firmer than a schedule. The crew flew the route, tested the ship and returned safely.
