Artemis II crew splashes down in Pacific Ocean, ending record-breaking moon flyby

The Artemis II, and the four astronauts aboard the Orion space capsule, has splashed down into the Pacific Ocean off the coast of San Diego, Nasa has confirmed. The spacecraft touched down at 5.07pm (1.07am BST) after a 10-day journey around the moon and back. The Orion spacecraft has traveled 694,481 miles (1,117,659km), Nasa said. 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. They join an exclusive club of just 24 other humans who have travelled to the moon and returned safely to Earth. As the Orion capsule descended below 17,000 miles from the planet’s surface, Wiseman gave a description of the Earth as it came into view. “There’s a great blue hue to it. It’s beautiful,” he said. Related: Artemis II makes lunar flyby during Nasa mission – in pictures After landing in the Pacific Ocean, a recovery crew from the USS John P Murtha stands ready to retrieve the Artemis crew, using boats that will pull up to an inflatable “porch” attached to Orion’s hatch. Crew members will be transferred to the navy ship by helicopter. Nasa has proven it can once again send humans safely to and from cislunar space, the void between Earth and its nearest celestial body, and will build on the knowledge gained to further propel the Artemis program towards a scheduled crewed moon landing in 2028, 56 years after the last. The rest of humanity, meanwhile, has received memories of a week and a half in which the world appeared to come together for a rare moment of unity to enjoy stunning video footage and high-resolution images of the lunar surface – and Earth from afar – as well as some profound and heartfelt words from usually unsentimental astronauts as they described what they were seeing. “I just had an overwhelming sense of being moved by looking at the moon…