Key takeaways
- Artemis II splashed down at 8:07 p.m. EDT on 10 April 2026 (1:07 a.m. BST on 11 April) in the Pacific Ocean off San Diego
- Orion was due to hit the atmosphere at 24,000 mph and endure temperatures up to 2,760°C, the ultimate test of its heat shield
- NASA redesigned the reentry trajectory after Artemis I heat shield damage, and this was the first crewed test of the new approach
- Service module separation was scheduled for 7:33 p.m. EDT, the six-minute plasma blackout for 7:53 p.m. and parachute deployment for 8:03 p.m.
- The mission's success cleared the way for Artemis III, a 2027 test flight in Earth orbit, and the Artemis IV Moon landing
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The Full Timeline, 10 April
Ten days earlier, four astronauts had climbed into the Orion spacecraft and left the Earth. On 10 April, they came home, riding a fireball.
NASA's Artemis II mission was entering its final hours. Commander Reid Wiseman, pilot Victor Glover, mission specialists Christina Koch and Jeremy Hansen were preparing for the most dangerous phase of the entire flight: slamming back into the atmosphere at 24,000 mph after travelling further from Earth than any human beings in history.
Here was the planned reentry and splashdown timeline in EDT and BST:
7:33 p.m. EDT / 12:33 a.m. BST: Service module separation. The European-built propulsion module that had carried Orion to the Moon and back was due to be jettisoned, to burn up in the atmosphere. From that moment, there was no turning back.
7:37 p.m. EDT / 12:37 a.m. BST: Crew module raise burn. Orion was to fire its small reaction control thrusters to fine-tune its entry angle.
7:53 p.m. EDT / 12:53 a.m. BST: Entry interface. Orion was to hit the top of the atmosphere at 400,000 feet, travelling at nearly 24,000 mph. Superheated plasma, ionised gas at thousands of degrees, would envelop the capsule. All radio signals would be blocked. A planned six-minute communications blackout was to begin.
~7:59 p.m. EDT / ~12:59 a.m. BST: Signal reacquisition. If the heat shield held, Mission Control would hear from the crew again.
8:03 p.m. EDT / 1:03 a.m. BST: Drogue parachutes were due to deploy at 22,000 feet, stabilising the capsule.
8:04 p.m. EDT / 1:04 a.m. BST: Three main parachutes were due to deploy at 6,000 feet, each 116 feet in diameter, slowing Orion from over 300 mph to roughly 20 mph.
8:07 p.m. EDT / 1:07 a.m. BST: Splashdown in the Pacific Ocean off San Diego. The target was approximately 100 miles off the coast.
The Heat Shield Gamble
By NASA's own admission, this was the riskiest part of the entire mission, and the most important engineering test Artemis II was designed to perform.
Orion's heat shield is the largest ever flown on a crewed spacecraft: 16.5 feet in diameter, made of AVCOAT, an ablative material that chars and erodes away to absorb the heat of reentry. During Artemis I in 2022 (an uncrewed test flight), engineers were alarmed to discover that chunks of the heat shield had broken away during descent. The root cause, identified in December 2024, was a permeability problem: gases became trapped inside the decomposing AVCOAT during a phase of the Artemis I reentry when external temperatures dropped but internal layers were still superheated. The pressure built up with nowhere to go, and the material fractured.
NASA chose not to rebuild the shield. Instead, they redesigned how Orion enters the atmosphere.
Artemis I used a pronounced skip entry: the spacecraft bounced off the upper atmosphere, cooled in the vacuum of space, and then re-entered a second time. That temperature cycling is what caused the gas-trapping problem. Artemis II was to use a modified lofted entry, a gentler, more continuous descent that keeps the heat shield at sustained high temperatures throughout, maintaining the permeability of the outer char layer so that trapped gases can escape naturally.
It was the first time this trajectory had been flown with a crew aboard. Engineers expected some char loss, but not to the degree seen on Artemis I. The reentry on 10 April was the test of whether they were right.
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What the Crew Said on the Way Home
The five-day coast back from the Moon gave the crew time to reflect, and some of their words during the return journey were remarkable.
Pilot Victor Glover, asked about the 40-minute communications blackout behind the Moon on Flight Day 6, said: "I took a brief moment to say a short prayer of gratitude for being sent on this mission and trusted with bringing back scientifically relevant information." He added: "It doesn't change it, it absolutely reaffirms that we live on a fragile planet in the vacuum of space."
On the subject of the reentry, Glover was characteristically direct: "Riding a fireball through the atmosphere is profound as well."
Commander Reid Wiseman shared one of the most emotional moments of the mission: he named a lunar crater in honour of his late wife, Carroll. He described it as "kind of the pinnacle moment of the mission for me", a moment that left the entire crew in tears.
These are not the stoic, by-the-numbers astronauts of the Apollo era. They are open, emotional, articulate, and on 10 April they staked their lives on a heat shield that had surprised engineers the last time it was tested.
Recovery at Sea
Recovery was planned to begin immediately after splashdown.
The USS John P. Murtha (LPD-26), a San Diego-based amphibious transport dock, was already in position approximately 100 miles off the California coast. The Murtha had the well deck, helicopter pad, medical facilities, and communications suite needed for the operation.
MH-60S Sea Hawk helicopters from Helicopter Sea Combat Squadron 23 (the "Wildcards"), based at Naval Air Station North Island in San Diego, were to track Orion through the atmosphere and be overhead within minutes of splashdown. Navy divers were to deploy an inflatable "front porch" platform beneath Orion's side hatch. One by one, the four crew members were to exit the capsule, be hoisted into the helicopters, and flown to the Murtha for medical evaluation. All four crew members emerged healthy.
NASA expected the crew to be aboard the recovery ship within two hours of splashdown. From there, they were to travel to shore and board an aircraft bound for NASA's Johnson Space Center in Houston for debriefing and extended medical monitoring.
What This Mission Proved
Artemis II was never about landing on the Moon. It was about proving that every element of the system, the SLS rocket, the Orion spacecraft, the life support, the deep-space communications, the heat shield, works with a crew on board.
The numbers tell the story. 248,655 miles from Earth, a new human distance record, breaking Apollo 13's mark from 1970. 4,070 miles above the lunar surface, the closest humans have been to the Moon since Apollo 17 walked on it in December 1972. A 54-minute total solar eclipse witnessed from lunar orbit. Earthrise photographed with modern digital cameras for the first time. And a reentry trajectory redesigned from scratch after the Artemis I heat shield anomaly.
With the splashdown on 10 April, NASA had proven the entire round trip, and the way was clear for Artemis III. Under the plan NASA announced in February 2026, that mission is a test flight in Earth orbit in 2027, docking Orion with the SpaceX and Blue Origin landers, and the first crewed landing since 1972 moved to Artemis IV, targeted for 2028.
For the first time in 54 years, humans went to the Moon and came home. On 10 April, the last page of that chapter was written.
How it was covered: NASA TV, YouTube, NASA+, Amazon Prime Video, and Netflix carried the splashdown, with coverage beginning at approximately 6:00 p.m. EDT / 11:00 p.m. BST.
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Ian ClaytonAmateur astronomer and founder of WatchTheStars.co.uk, dedicated to helping others explore the wonders of our universe. Full profile →
