NASA’s Artemis II crew is assisted by the Navy exiting the capsule in a new close-up video
When people watched NASA’s Artemis II mission return to Earth, they saw helicopter views of small orange-clad figures emerging from space into a raft.
But the U.S. space agency has since released a short video of the Navy recovery team as they opened the launch pad on Friday, April 10. Trained divers and medical officers entered Orion’s tiny 330-cubic-foot capsule, greeting the four astronauts.
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From the video cameras mounted on the team’s helmets, shown in the X post below, it feels like you’re right there with them. The group cheers and claps, with shouts of “let’s go!” followed by “four greens” (a callout for the crew to be ready).
“Welcome home,” the recovery team said to the Artemis II crew, Commander Reid Wiseman, Victor Glover, Christina Koch, and Jeremy Hansen, the first humans to orbit the moon since 1972.
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Nearby, a spaceship, called Sincerity crewed, it was seen beating and singing as it crashed into the Pacific Ocean off the coast of San Diego, California. The capsule had just plunged into Earth’s atmosphere, a fiery descent that sent the crew traveling at 25,000 mph.
During that intense and dangerous phase, the astronauts experienced nearly 4Gs, a pressure equal to four times their body weight. Without proper training, those conditions, coupled with an overabundance of adrenaline, can cause a person to black out.
But as the nursing team soon discovered, not only were the returning crew healthy, they were happy, smiling as they awaited the procedures to leave the spacecraft. At the end of the video, one of the recovery officers, called “Vlad,” said he did something for Wiseman. The clip ends before “something” is revealed.
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“Jesse, Steve, Laddy, and Vlad….what an amazing feeling to welcome you aboard Integrity after nearly 700,000 miles,” Wiseman said in a post on X. “We are eternally grateful for your service to our employees and to the entire country.”
What is clear is that the people who welcomed Artemis II back to Earth seemed as happy as the astronauts themselves. Before boarding inside the crew quarters for the 10-day trip, the crew almost forgot to put the seal cover over the bottom edge of the hood in a rush to see their friends.
Artemis II, launched on April 1, marked NASA’s triumphant return to manned space exploration. It planned the trip as an important shakeout cruise for the spacecraft before the agency tried to land on the moon. During the flight, the Artemis II crew put Orion through its paces, testing everything from propulsion and communications to how people can live, work, and experience science far from home.
The day after Artemis II’s breakout, Commander Reid Wiseman visits the Orion spacecraft at the USS John P. Murtha’s launch pad.
Credit: NASA / Bill Ingalls
Loaded with cameras, sensors, and tests, the mission turned the crew into test pilots and test subjects, gathering data to shape future Artemis missions. The successful mission tests the hardware and flight controls for a lunar mission planned for 2028.
NASA is not only motivated to return to the moon for the sake of the moon but to practice keeping people alive on another planet for a long time. That’s important before sending astronauts on a long-term mission to Mars, possibly in the late 2030s.
A new space race also sets up Artemis’ campaign timeline. The United States wants to land on the moon again before China, which is very close to reaching its first manned moon.
If you thought the splash meant that Wiseman, Glover, Koch, and Hansen would finally be free, you’d be wrong. A few hours after landing, NASA again tested the crew’s ability on an obstacle course.
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