{"id":262405,"date":"2026-04-11T08:10:25","date_gmt":"2026-04-11T08:10:25","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/262405\/"},"modified":"2026-04-11T08:10:25","modified_gmt":"2026-04-11T08:10:25","slug":"historic-return-to-the-moon-culminates-in-dramatic-splashdown-off-san-diego","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/262405\/","title":{"rendered":"Historic return to the Moon culminates in dramatic splashdown off San Diego"},"content":{"rendered":"

The first crewed flight to the Moon in over 50 years ended at 5:07 p.m. Friday with a successful splashdown in the Pacific Ocean off San Diego.<\/p>\n

After a fiery re-entry, the four Artemis II astronauts in the Orion Capusle \u2014 NASA\u2019s\u00a0Reid Wiseman<\/a>,\u00a0Victor Glover<\/a>\u00a0and\u00a0Christina Koch<\/a>, and the Canadian Space Agency\u2019s \u00a0Jeremy Hansen<\/a>\u00a0\u2014 landed under three giant parachutes amid clear Pacific skies.<\/p>\n

Re-entry into Earth\u2019s atmosphere began at 4:53 p.m. southeast of Hawaii, with friction raising the temperature around the Orion<\/a> to 3,000 degrees and cutting radio communion for six minutes.<\/p>\n

Just after 5:01 p.m., Koch radioed, saying \u201cIntegrity, Houston, comm check, post blackout,\u201d confirming the capsule had successfully made it through the most stressful part of the re-entry.<\/p>\n

Live video from aircraft showed drogue parachutes unfurling, then the main chutes opening to gently lower the capsule into the ocean.<\/p>\n

\"Navy<\/a>Navy divers on an inflatable boat approach the capsule. (Image from NASA video)<\/p>\n

Moments after the splashdown, NASA confirmed that the four astronauts were in \u201cgood \u201cexcellent condition.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThis is the just beginning,\u201d said NASA Administrator Jacob Isaacman after the landing. \u201cWe\u2019re going to get back into this with frequency, sending missions to the moon.\u201d<\/p>\n

After the splashdown, a communications glitch prevented the astronauts from powering down the capsule so that Navy divers could immediately approach. <\/p>\n

Just before 6 p.m., the divers approached to assist the astronauts onto an inflatable raft, and then up to MH-60S SeaHawk helicopters to fly them to the nearby USS John P. Murtha<\/a>, an amphibious transport dock ship from Naval Base San Diego. After safety checks, the first astronaut, Koch, emerged from the capsule at 6:33 p.m. Four minutes later, all four were out.<\/p>\n

\"Recovery<\/a>Recovery helicopters aboard the USS John P Murtha. (Image from NASA video)<\/p>\n

Aboard the Murtha, the astronauts will be checked by doctors in the warship\u2019s medical bay.<\/p>\n

The four will then be flown to North Island, where awaiting aircraft will take them to NASA\u2019s Johnson Space Center<\/a> in Houston.<\/p>\n

There was a chance that the returning spacecraft could be seen as a brief flash from coastal San Diego, and a crowd gathered at Windansea Beach, but there was heavy cloud cover.<\/p>\n

Amanda Finnie, a La Jolla resident, was hoping to see the historic event. \u201cI\u2019m here today to watch history and watch a rocket ship land. I don\u2019t think I\u2019m going to be able to see it, but I think I\u2019ll be able to hear it,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

\"Crowd<\/a>The crowd at Windandsea hoping to see the splashdown. (Photo by Thomas Murphy\/Times of San Diego)<\/p>\n

Thomas Murphy contributed to this article.<\/p>\n

Updated at 8:10 p.m., Friday, April 10, 2026<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The first crewed flight to the Moon in over 50 years ended at 5:07 p.m. Friday with a…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":262406,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[28],"tags":[105999,3098,109753,115016,74,76,75,113123],"class_list":{"0":"post-262405","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-san-diego","8":"tag-artemis-ii","9":"tag-nasa","10":"tag-orion","11":"tag-re-entry","12":"tag-san-diego","13":"tag-san-diego-headlines","14":"tag-san-diego-news","15":"tag-splashdown"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/262405","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=262405"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/262405\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/262406"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=262405"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=262405"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=262405"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}