After completing its mission of a lunar flyby on Monday, the Artemis II is now headed back home to Earth and will splashdown off the California coast.
Launching April 1 from Cape Canaveral, Florida, the 10-day mission primarily serves as a test flight, with the four-person crew testing systems and hardware ahead of a future moon landing. Under the Artemis campaign, NASA intends to eventually return astronauts to the surface of the moon for the first time since the Apollo missions ended in 1972.
Here’s when the Artemis II will return to Earth, and how you can watch its splashdown off the Southern California coast.
When does Artemis II reenter Earth’s atmosphere? What time is Artemis 2 splashdown?
The Artemis II crew launched from NASA’s Space Launch System rocket at Kennedy Space Center in Florida on April 1, 2026, hitching a ride on the Orion spacecraft. The Orion capsule is due to reenter Earth’s atmosphere on Friday, April 10. It will make a water landing around 5:07 p.m. PST in the Pacific Ocean off the coast of San Diego, California.
See timeline for Artemis II’s return to Earth
According to the Austin American-Statesman, here is the timeline in Pacific Standard Time for April 10:
What happens when Artemis II reenters Earth’s atmosphere?
When reentry occurs, Orion’s service module, which is responsible for propelling and maneuvering the vehicle through space, will separate and burn up, exposing the crew module’s heat shield that protects the astronauts from the 3,000-degree Fahrenheit conditions the vehicle will endure.
Once Orion blazes through Earth’s atmosphere, the protective heat shield will be jettisoned to make way for the parachutes to deploy and slow the vehicle.
After splashdown, the crew will exit the vehicle onto a U.S. Navy recovery vessel within about two hours, and recovery teams will retrieve the crew using helicopters and deliver them to the USS John P. Murtha,” NASA said.
Once the astronauts are abord, they will “undergo post-mission medical evaluations in the ship’s medical bay before traveling back to shore to meet with an aircraft bound for NASA’s Johnson Space Center in Houston,” according to NASA.
Will Artemis II splashdown be livestreamed or televised?
The Artemis II splashdown off the coast of San Diego on Friday, April 10, 2026, will be streamed live on NASA+, the NASA app, and its YouTube channel.
Where is Artemis II now? Location tracker
Following the completion of their mission, NASA said, the “crew is expected to travel a total of 695,081 miles from launch to splashdown.”
As of the morning of Thursday, April 9, the crew was more than 140,000 miles away from Earth.
Want to follow the astronauts along the Artemis II lunar journey? NASA has an Artemis II tracker available online and in its mobile app that lets users see where Orion is, how fast it’s traveling, and how far the spacecraft is from Earth and the moon.
The mobile version for smartphones even includes an augmented reality feature that allows users to move their phones to see where Orion is relative to Earth.
Want more? Follow NASA on social media
Get the latest imagery and live updates from the Artemis II mission at:
This article originally appeared on Palm Springs Desert Sun: NASA Artemis II heads home with Pacific splashdown off California
Reporting by Samantha Neely, Eric Lagatta and Daniella Segura, Palm Springs Desert Sun / Palm Springs Desert Sun
USA TODAY Network via Reuters Connect
