{"id":607445,"date":"2026-04-15T01:37:12","date_gmt":"2026-04-15T01:37:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/607445\/"},"modified":"2026-04-15T01:37:12","modified_gmt":"2026-04-15T01:37:12","slug":"new-footage-captures-moment-artemis-ii-crew-welcomed-home","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/607445\/","title":{"rendered":"New footage captures moment Artemis II crew welcomed home"},"content":{"rendered":"

Newly released footage shows the moment a recovery crew opens the hatch of the Artemis II’s Orion capsule <\/a>and welcomes its four-member crew home.<\/p>\n

Cheers are heard from both parties as fresh air floods the capsule, before the recovery crew boards the spacecraft and welcomes the astronauts home with handshakes and well-wishes.<\/p>\n

\"Two<\/p>\n

Recovery teams prepare to open the side hatch. (Reuters: @Astro_Reid\/Instagram)<\/p>\n

The\u00a0crew members \u2014 Christina Koch, Captain Victor Glover, Colonel Jeremy Hansen and Captain Reid Wiseman \u2014 were then flown to a US military ship for medical evaluations.<\/p>\n

The Artemis II capsule and its crew streaked through Earth’s atmosphere and safely splashed down in the Pacific Ocean on Friday (Saturday morning, Australian time) after nearly 10 days in space, capping the first voyage by humans to the vicinity of the Moon in over half a century.<\/p>\n

NASA’s gumdrop-shaped Orion capsule, dubbed Integrity, parachuted gently into calm seas off the Southern California coast.<\/p>\n

\"A<\/p>\n

Recovery teams cheer for the crew after the hatch is opened. (Reuters: @Astro_Reid\/Instagram)<\/p>\n

Just four days earlier, the mission took the astronauts 406,771 kilometres away from Earth, deeper into space than anyone had flown before.<\/p>\n

The Artemis II flight was the debut crewed test flight for a series of Artemis missions aimed at returning astronauts to the lunar surface starting in 2028.<\/p>\n

‘Perfect bullseye’ splashdown<\/p>\n

The splashdown under partly cloudy skies was broadcast live via a NASA webcast.<\/p>\n

“A perfect bullseye splashdown for Integrity and its four astronauts,” NASA commentator Rob Navias said moments after the landing.<\/p>\n

“We are stable one \u2014 four green crew members,” Captain Wiseman, the mission commander, radioed just after splashdown, signalling the capsule was upright and that all four astronauts were in good shape.<\/p>\n

\"Two<\/p>\n

The astronauts are welcomed home. (Reuters: @Astro_Reid\/Instagram)<\/p>\n

Once navy divers had attached a floating collar to stabilise the capsule, the four astronauts, still wearing their orange flight suits, were helped onto an inflatable raft.<\/p>\n

From there, they were hoisted one by one to helicopters hovering overhead and flown a short distance to a nearby navy amphibious transport vessel, the John P Murtha, for further medical examination.<\/p>\n

Stepping stone to MarsArtemis II moon fly-by breaks Apollo 13 distance record<\/a><\/p>\n

The astronauts have travelled further from Earth than any humans before, capturing never-before-seen views of the far side of the Moon.<\/p>\n

The quartet blasted off from Cape Canaveral, Florida, on April 1 aboard NASA’s giant Space Launch System rocket, orbiting twice around Earth before sailing on for a rare journey around the far side of the Moon.<\/p>\n

In so doing, they became the first astronauts to fly around Earth’s only natural satellite since the Apollo program of the 1960s and 70s.<\/p>\n

The crew’s peak distance of 406,771km broke the record of roughly 399,117km set in 1970 by the crew of Apollo 13.<\/p>\n

“This is an incredible test of an incredible machine,” said NASA’s associate administrator, Amit Kshatriya.<\/p>\n

Reuters<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Newly released footage shows the moment a recovery crew opens the hatch of the Artemis II’s Orion capsule…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":607446,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[23],"tags":[216872,44688,64,63,103605,102180,295499,295498,33409,44828,131,286914,25009,128,285],"class_list":["post-607445","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-space","tag-artemis-ii","tag-astronauts","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-dark-side-of-the-moon","tag-mars-mission","tag-mars-return","tag-mission-integrity","tag-mission-success","tag-moon-landing","tag-nasa","tag-orion-capsule","tag-pacific-ocean","tag-science","tag-space"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/607445","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=607445"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/607445\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/607446"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=607445"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=607445"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=607445"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}