Washington DC: The Artemis II crew has reached the halfway point of its return journey to Earth after completing a historic lunar flyby, according to NASA.
The space agency said the astronauts are now preparing for splashdown in the Pacific Ocean off the coast of San Diego at around 8:07 pm ET on Friday (0007 UTC on Saturday), where they will be recovered by the US Navy’s USS John P. Murtha.
During the mission, the crew also set a new record for the farthest distance travelled by humans from Earth, reaching 252,756 miles (406,771 km) while passing around the far side of the Moon, surpassing the Apollo 13 record.
NASA said the mission also included observations such as a solar eclipse seen from space, adding to the scientific and exploratory milestones of the flight.
The Artemis II mission is NASA’s first crewed test flight under its Artemis programme, aimed at returning humans to the Moon and enabling future deep space exploration. It includes astronauts Reid Wiseman, Victor Glover, Christina Koch, and Canadian Space Agency astronaut Jeremy Hansen.
The agency said the mission is designed to test critical systems, validate crew safety procedures, and gather data for future lunar missions, marking a key step toward long-term human presence on the Moon and future missions to Mars.