NASA Artemis II Orion Crew Module Returns to Kennedy Space Center

NASA Artemis II Orion Crew Module Returns to Kennedy Space Center

From left, Meagan Jones, engineer, NASA’s Kennedy Space Center, and Howard Hu, manager, Orion Program, looks at NASA’s Orion spacecraft

Howard Hu, manager, NASA's Orion Program, poses with NASA’s Orion spacecraft following its arrival

NASA’s Orion spacecraft for the agency’s Artemis II Mission arrived at the NASA’s Kennedy Space Center Multi-Payload Processing Facility (MPPF) in Florida on Thursday, April 30, 2026, for de-servicing operations on the spacecraft. The Orion spacecraft successfully splashed down on Friday, April 10, 2026, in the Pacific Ocean following its approximate 10-day journey around the Moon carrying NASA astronauts Reid Wiseman, Victor Glover, and Christina Koch, and Canadian Space Agency (CSA) astronaut Jeremy Hansen.

Under Artemis, NASA will send astronauts on increasingly difficult missions to explore more of the Moon for scientific discovery, economic benefits, and to build on our foundation for the first crewed missions to Mars.

The first crewed test flight of NASA’s Artemis program lifted off from Launch Pad 39B at the agency’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida on April 1, 2026, carrying the first astronauts to travel to the Moon in more than half a century. 

The crew completed a record-setting lunar flyby, taking them 252,756 miles at their farthest distance from Earth and 4,067 miles above the lunar surface at their closest approach. 

Learn more about NASA's Artemis II Mission:
https://www.nasa.gov/mission/artemis-ii/

Image Credit: NASA/Ben Smegelsky

Date: April 30, 2026

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