The artemis 2 splashdown returned the four astronauts to the Pacific off the California coast Friday evening after a mission that included a far side lunar flyby.
Video showed the Orion crew module separate from its service module about thirty minutes before reentry, and the descent drew comparisons with Apollo era recoveries, as reported by mission coverage.
Recovery teams waited over an hour for a hexagonal raft called a front porch to inflate and attach to a stabilizing collar around the capsule before extracting the crew.
The astronauts were moved to the front porch and then lifted by helicopter to the deck of the USS John P Murtha, with Commander Reid Wiseman the last to be airlifted, according to launch and recovery reports.
Crowds and museums marked the return, with celebrations at the nearby Air and Space Museum in San Diego and at the Columbia Memorial Space Center in Downey, where the descent prompted tense waiting and relief.
Footage showed the crew cheer and wave to a livestream camera once aboard the recovery ship, and coverage credited NASA images and agency screenshots for many of the public visuals.
Reflections And Mission Milestones
The crew reflected on the mission during a live conference beamed from space, with a floating microphone passing between them while answers arrived with transmission delays, as NASA briefings described.
Pilot Victor Glover said the team was eager to share "many more pictures" and "many more stories" and that they had a few days left to process the experience, as he told reporters.
Commander Reid Wiseman described a period of about forty minutes of "profound solitude" when contact with Earth was lost, and said the team paused to share maple cookies from crew member Jeremy and to reflect.
Wiseman called naming a lunar crater after his late wife Carroll the mission's pinnacle moment, saying Jeremy spelled her name and that Christina Koch began crying, as he related during the conference.
Christina Koch told BBC News Science Editor Rebecca Morelle she would miss the camaraderie in space and that she would not miss anything about returning, adding a reflection on risk and sacrifice for exploration.
The mission also set a distance record for human travel, when Orion reached about 13 56 EDT and 18 56 BST on Monday, surpassing a 1970 record of 248,655 miles reported in mission summaries, and President Trump spoke with the team to offer congratulations.
