Artemis II returns from historic journey
By Commodore Dave Mason
SAN DIEGO — The USS Angeles applauds the return of Artemis II astronauts after they completed the first crewed mission in orbit around the moon since 1972.
They went farther than anyone from Earth, breaking the record Apollo 13 set in 1970.
Astronauts splashed down 50 or so miles from the coast of San Diego at 5:07 p.m. Friday, following a flawless separation of the Integrity command module from the European Space Agency service module at around 4:30 p.m. By 7 p.m., Navy divers had transported astronauts Reid Wiseman, Victor Glover, Christina Koch and Jeremy Hansen to the nearby amphibious dock ship USS John P. Murtha.
The mission marked several firsts, including the first woman (Koch), the first Black man (Glover) and the first Canadian (Hansen) to orbit the moon.
For more about the spashdown, see my story at thecentersquare.com.
Above, the astronauts hug on Integrity during the Artemis II mission, which included this photo of the fully illuminated moon. Both photos are from NASA.
