Artemis II astronauts return home, ending record-breaking NASA mission around the moon

After a fiery trip through Earth’s atmosphere that lasted nearly 15 minutes, the crew's Orion spacecraft splashed down in the Pacific Ocean just after 8 p.m. ET on Friday.

The four Artemis II astronauts are back safely on Earth after flying around the moon on NASA’s first lunar mission in more than 50 years.

After a fiery trip through Earth’s atmosphere that lasted nearly 15 minutes, NASA astronauts Reid Wiseman, Christina Koch and Victor Glover and Canadian astronaut Jeremy Hansen splashed down in the Pacific Ocean off the coast of San Diego in their Orion capsule at 8:07 p.m. ET.

It was a picture-perfect splashdown under three huge parachutes, with the capsule landing upright and bobbing in the water as recovery teams raced to the scene.