The Guardian81%
Artemis II crew splashes down safely off California coast, capping historic Nasa moon mission – live updates 8%
By Richard Luscombe0% Fran Lawther0%
4/10/2026, 5:59:26 PM
Topics: Nasa, Space Exploration
BS Summary: This article contains 24 faulty reasoning types, including Framing Effect, Halo Effect, and Availability Heuristic, with Appeal to Authority as the most egregious example at 14.9% saturation with 194 hits. Analysis detected 1,503 faulty-reasoning hits from 1,303 analyzed words, generating a BS Score of 23.9% and a BS Rank of 8% (20,330 of 21,887 articles). This article is better (less manipulative) than 92.90% of the article peer group.
Artemis II crew splashes down safely off California coast, capping historic Nasa moon mission – live updates
Nasa confirms ‘textbook splashdown’ at 5.07pm PT; Reid Wiseman, the Artemis II commander, reports ‘four green crew members’
• Artemis II crew splashes down in Pacific Ocean, ending record-breaking moon flyby
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Recovery crews open Orion hatch
The first navy recovery boat has pulled up adjacent to the Orion capsule in the Pacific Ocean off the San Diego coast.
Footage on Nasa TV shows a small inflatable vessel next to the spacecraft, and crew members securing it alongside.
Two navy personnel have clambered on to Orion, and the side hatch is now open, almost an hour after splashdown.
The sea is calm, there is barely a swell.
Donald Trump watched the splashdown with friends, it seems.
Per a post on X by CPAN’s Capitol Hill producer Craig Caplan: A White House official shares with the pool that President Trump watched the splashdown of Artemis II.
A TV was wheeled into the room for the president and his MAGA Inc guests at Trump Winery.
The Trump Winery is a 1,300-acre estate owned by the president in Virginia.
Nasa has confirmed that the official time of splashdown was 5.07:27pm PT.
That means the mission elapsed time, the total duration of Artemis II’s flight from its 6.35pm ET lift-off from Florida on 1 April, was nine days, one hour, 32 minutes, and 15 seconds.
Despite barely passing a ninth day, it will be recorded officially as a 10-day mission because blast-off day was treated as “flight day one”.
The total miles flown by Artemis II and its four astronauts was 694,481.
Jared Isaacman, the Nasa administrator, has been speaking from the deck of the USS John P Murtha as he awaits the arrival of the Artemis astronauts.
Asked how he viewed the accomplishment of sending humans to the moon for the first time since 1972, and returning them safely to Earth, Isaacman said: Our crew members that we’ve all had an opportunity to observe over the last 10 days, they’re absolutely professional astronauts, wonderful communicators, almost poets.
These were the ambassadors from humanity to the stars that we sent out there right now.
This is not a once in a lifetime, which you hear sometimes around here.
No, it’s not.
This is just the beginning.
We are going to get back into doing this with frequency, sending missions to the moon until we land on it in 2028 and start building our base.
There is a lot to celebrate right now on the mission well accomplished for Artemis II, and at the same time we’ve got to start getting ready for Artemis III.
Asked about Nasa’s lunar plan
Navy fast boats with recovery crews are approaching Orion, currently bobbing in the Pacific Ocean off San Diego, video from a navy helicopter is showing.
But our first glimpse of the Artemis II astronauts could still be a hour or so away.
The spacecraft must power down, and the crew have to follow a strict sequence of post-landing tasks before the hatch can open.
Also, Nasa is reporting communications glitches between the recovery teams and the capsule.
Recovery personnel will establish a “front porch” of an inflatable platform outside the capsule in the Pacific Ocean before the hatch is opened and the crew members extracted.
Reid Wiseman, the Artemis II commander, reports “four green crew members”.
That’s not their complexion after a 25,000mph return to Earth, just confirmation that they are all in good shape!
“A textbook splashdown,” Nail says.
Video footage from a navy helicopter shows all five giant airbags on Orion have deployed, stabilizing the capsule in a not-so-choppy Pacific Ocean.
“From the pages of Jules Verne, to a modern day mission to the moon, a new chapter of the exploration of our celestial neighbor is complete,” Nasa’s splashdown commentator Derrol Nail says.
“Integrity’s astronauts are back on Earth.”
Nasa has confirmed splashdown of Artemis II, and four astronauts aboard the Orion crew capsule, in the Pacific Ocean.
The spacecraft touched down at 5.07pm (1.07am BST) after a 10-day journey around the moon and back.
Commander Reid Wiseman, pilot Victor Glover, and mission specialist Christina Koch of Nasa; and the Canadian Space Agency’s Jeremy Hansen, have just become the first humans to travel to the moon, and return to Earth safely, since the crew of Apollo 17 in December 1970.
The first in a sequence of 11 parachute deployments to slow Orion’s descent has begun.
Now all three main chutes have deployed.
Everything is looking good!
Here’s a view of Orion entering Earth’s atmosphere.
“Houston, Integrity, we have you loud and clear”.
And with that, voice contact has resumed with the Orion capsule, five minutes from splashdown.
“Our trajectory is perfect,” Derrol Nail, Nasa’s commentator, says.
Orion is still in a blackout period, but ground tracking systems, including from the US navy, have sight of the capsule.
We are standing by for the momentary resumption of communications with the astronauts.
The Artemis II crew has begun the reentry to Earth’s atmosphere at a speed of almost 25,000mph, and at a temperature approaching 5,000F.
We won’t hear anything from the astronauts for the next six minutes because of a communications blackout caused by a build up of super hot plasma around the spacecraft.
Splashdown of the Orion capsule is still set for 5.07pm PT.
Nasa reports no issues, and that weather at the splashdown site in the Pacific Ocean is “go”.
We’re getting pictures on the news wires of the splashdown preparations happening off the coast of California.
US navy divers were preparing to deploy in small boats from the well deck of USS John P Murtha to recover Artemis II crew members.
Orion is descending at a rate of 15,000ft per second as it approaches reeentry.
“All the systems [are] in excellent shape,” Nasa splashdown commentator Derrol Nail says.
Eight minutes until reentry, 21 minutes until splashdown.
Wiseman has just announced: “We have a great view of the moon out of window two.
It looks a little smaller than yesterday”.
“Good to have you back,” Nasa’s Jacki Mahaffey, in mission control, replied.
Crew module separation was followed in short order by the final firing of Orion’s thrusters, the so-called “raise burn” that commits the capsule to its final angle of descent for reentry to Earth’s atmosphere.
Reid Wiseman, the Artemis II commander, told mission control he had “a great view” of the newly separated service module as it floated away.
“It’s a beautiful looking machine,” he said.
Beautiful or not, the module will now disintegrate on reentry.
We are half an hour from splashdown.
Orion and its European Space Agency-built service module have parted ways, Nasa has confirmed.
The service module will burn up on reentry to Earth’s atmosphere, while the Orion crew capsule is protected by a heat shield.
Orion is now flying alone for the first time in the entire 10-day mission.
Mission control has just given the go ahead for “CM raise”, the firing of thrusters to adjust Orion’s trajectory upwards for reentry, its “final angle of attack”.
All is looking good for separation of Orion from its service module in just a few minutes’ time. 3,300 miles to go!
Here’s another statistic from the mission, the total distance traveled by Artemis II and its Orion capsule since its 1 April launch from Florida’s Kennedy Space Center.
At splashdown, the spacecraft will have traveled 694,481 miles, Nasa says.
All four crew members are “suited and seated” ready for Earth atmosphere reentry, Reid Wiseman, the Artemis II commander, has just confirmed to mission control.
Orion is now below 5,000 miles from Earth.
Speakers
4speakers26%attributed speech964writer words
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91%flagged-word coverageDerrol Nail
65 attributed words19% of attributed speech61% writer coverage
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