STORY: Crew members of the Artemis II mission were airlifted by helicopter after their splashdown in the Pacific Ocean on Friday (April 10) after nearly 10 days in space, capping the first voyage by humans to the vicinity of the moon in over half a century.

NASA's gumdrop-shaped Orion capsule, dubbed Integrity, parachuted gently into the sea off the Southern California coast shortly after 5 p.m. PT (0000 GMT), concluding a mission that took the astronauts deeper into space than anyone had flown before.

Recovery teams were standing by to secure the floating capsule and retrieve the four-member crew -- U.S. astronauts Reid Wiseman, 50, Victor Glover, 49, and Christina Koch, 47, along with Canadian astronaut Jeremy Hansen, 50.

The Artemis II flight, traveling a total of 694,392 miles (1,117,515 km) across two Earth orbits and a climactic lunar flyby some 252,000 miles away, was the debut crewed test flight in a series of Artemis missions that aim to start landing astronauts on the lunar surface starting in 2028.

DESCRIPCIÓN DE IMÁGENES

SHOWS: OFF COAST OF SAN DIEGO, CALIFORNIA, UNITED STATES (APRIL 10, 2026) (NASA - For editorial use only)

1. HELICOPTER APPROACHING TO AIRLIFT ASTRONAUT

2. VARIOUS OF PERSON COMING DOWN FROM HELICOPTER FOR AIRLIFT

3. ASTRONAUT READYING FOR AIRLIFT

4. (PART MUTE) ASTRONAUT BEING AIRLIFTED

5. HELICOPTER HOVERING ABOVE ASTRONAUTS, PERSON COMING DOWN FOR AIRLIFT

6. ASTRONAUT READYING FOR AIRLIFT

7. ASTRONAUT BEING AIRLIFTED

8. HELICOPTER ABOVE ASTRONAUTS FOR AIRLIFT, ASTRONAUT BEING AIRLIFTED

9. HELICOPTER WITH AIRLIFTED ASTRONAUT FLYING AWAY

10. HELICOPTER ARRIVING AT ASTRONAUT REID WISEMAN FOR AIRLIFTING, WISEMAN READYING FOR AIRLIFTING, WISEMAN BEING AIRLIFTED, HELICOPTER FLYING AWAY