BREAKING: Artemis II Crew Status Update After 'Bullseye' Splashdown

The Artemis II crew is home and all four astronauts are safe.

Commander Reid Wiseman has confirmed multiple times since splashdown that he, pilot Victor Glover, mission specialist Christina Koch and Canadian Space Agency astronaut Jeremy Hansen are alive, well and in good health inside the Orion capsule. Recovery options are still underway.

Splashdown occurred at exactly 8:07 p.m. ET Friday in the Pacific Ocean off the coast of San Diego, completing a 10-day mission that took the crew around the Moon and back. The landing was described as a bullseye.

The Final Moments Before Splashdown

The final sequence of events happened rapidly. At 8:00 p.m., NASA reestablished communications with the crew as Orion made its return. At 8:03 p.m., at 23,400 feet, drogue parachutes deployed to slow and stabilize the spacecraft, dropping velocity to 479 feet per second with less than a mile to splashdown. At 8:04 p.m., at 5,400 feet, those drogue chutes were cut and three main parachutes deployed — part of Orion's 11-parachute system — reducing velocity to less than 200 feet per second for final descent. One minute and three seconds later, splashdown.

Where the Artemis II Crew Is Now

At 8:12 p.m., recovery team members from NASA and the U.S. military approached the spacecraft in inflatable boats. The crew has since been successfully extracted from Orion and evaluated by a medical examiner on the recovery raft. All four astronauts — Wiseman, Glover, Koch and Hansen — were confirmed "green," meaning they are healthy and cleared to proceed with recovery operations.

The crew is now awaiting U.S. Navy helicopters to transport them to the USS John P. Murtha. Once aboard, they will undergo further post-mission medical evaluations before returning to shore and boarding an aircraft bound for NASA's Johnson Space Center in Houston. Astronaut Christina Koch is expected to be extracted from the water first.

Meanwhile, Navy divers will attach a winch line to Orion to pull the spacecraft into a specially designed cradle inside the ship's well deck. Once secured, the capsule will be returned to U.S. Naval Base San Diego before making its way back to NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Florida for a thorough inspection — including a critical examination of the heat shield, which was a known concern heading into this mission.