Mission accomplished, Artemis II returns from Moon trip

London: The number of humans who have travelled to the Moon and returned safely to Earth will rise to 28 early Saturday morning (India time), when NASA’s Orion capsule, carrying four Artemis II astronauts, glides gently to a Pacific Ocean splashdown beneath three giant parachutes.

The scheduled landing off the coast of San Diego will mark the end of a 10-day lunar odyssey that made the three Americans and one Canadian the first people to travel beyond lower Earth orbit since the final mission of the Apollo program in December 1972, The Guardian said.

It will signal a new beginning for the US space agency and its international partners, after a highly successful test flight around the far side of the Moon that at first observation appears to have met every one of its objectives.

Nasa will build on the knowledge gained to further propel the Artemis program towards a scheduled crewed Moon landing in 2028.

A succession of deployments of Orion’s 11 parachutes at various altitudes has been designed to slow the spacecraft to 325mph, then 130mph, before the three main chutes, their canopies stretching a combined 73 meters, release for a further deceleration to a 17mph splashdown.

Coast Guard and Nasa recovery crews have been positioned to cover a landing zone about 550 miles in diameter. After medical checks following hatch opening and a brief stopover at a San Diego military base, the crew’s next destination is Houston’s Johnson Space Center, which they last saw on 27 March, and a reunion with their families.