A "live" logo above a headline reading NASA's Artemis II crew returns to Earth. Above an artist's rendering of the Orion spacecraft entering Earth's atmosphere.

At top, a map showing where the Orion capsule will hit Earth's atmosphere to the southeast of Hawai'i and where it will splashdown off the coast of San Diego. At bottom, a graphic showing the altitudes at which the capsule's parachutes will deploy.

A graphic of the Artemis II reentry timeline. The process takes 13 minutes for the capsule to travel from 400,000 feet above Earth down to the ocean. Also marked are a communications blackout spanning from about 30 seconds to 6 minutes into the process and the parachute deploy from 10 to 12.5 minutes.

🌎 NASA's Artemis II crew comes home tonight. Watch live with us here: www.scientificamerican.com/video/watch-...

Earth as seen from Orion spacecraft on left.

Artemis II view of Earth as it nears reentry. 4 hours 22 minutes to go. 🔭 🧪 #astrophotography #ArtemisII

A "live" logo above a headline reading NASA's Artemis II crew returns to Earth. Above an artist's rendering of the Orion spacecraft entering Earth's atmosphere.

At top, a map showing where the Orion capsule will hit Earth's atmosphere to the southeast of Hawai'i and where it will splashdown off the coast of San Diego. At bottom, a graphic showing the altitudes at which the capsule's parachutes will deploy.

A graphic of the Artemis II reentry timeline. The process takes 13 minutes for the capsule to travel from 400,000 feet above Earth down to the ocean. Also marked are a communications blackout spanning from about 30 seconds to 6 minutes into the process and the parachute deploy from 10 to 12.5 minutes.

🌎 NASA's Artemis II crew comes home tonight. Watch live with us here: www.scientificamerican.com/video/watch-...

Image Credit: NASA Image Description: View inside the Orion spacecraft during the burn Image Description Credit: NASA

#Artemis II 🚀🌕🌍

The crew has successfully executed their third and final return trajectory correction.

This eight-second thruster ignition changed the capsule's velocity, marking the completion of the mission’s last major maneuver.

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Artemis II carried out RTC3, the final course correction, at 1853 UTC. An 8 second, 1.3m/s delta-V burn. On course for entry at 2353 UTC and splashdown in the Pacific at 0007 UTC

The first photo of Earth as seen from the far side of the moon, taken by the Artemis II mission’s astronauts on Monday, April 6, 2026. (NASA)

It's time for them to come home.

The Artemis II astronauts are expected to splash down near San Diego around 8 p.m. ET.

Read more:
www.stripes.com/branches/nav... #Flashes

Charley Crockett’s Instagram comment on “Lonesome Drifter” being used on Artemis II. 🤣🤣🤣🤣

Artemis II still on course to splashdown at 0007UT. 🔭 🧪 #ArtemisII

The Artemis II splash down is not too far away now 🥹 This whole journey has been so incredible to watch and has given some hope in pretty dark times

I'm looking forward to seeing them get back safely 🌎

Four astronauts on NASA’s Artemis II are set to splash down in the Pacific Ocean off San Diego on Friday. Inside mission control in Houston, the team behind the mission will be working to bring them home. www.nytimes.com/interactive/...

Four astronauts. 252,756 miles. The Moon. Tonight at 8:07 PM ET, the Artemis II crew splashes down in the Pacific, the first return from deep space in over 50 years. NASA's entire budget is $24.9 billion. We spend $919 billion on defense. Science deserves better. Watch live nasa.gov/ways-to-watch/

Group hug!

Safe travels and enjoy the ride to the crew of Artemis II, who'll come home this evening and have done more to humanise spaceflight in my lifetime than anything else I can remember ❤️

When the Artemis II capsule lands off Southern California, a specialized team of Navy divers is waiting for them. And a helicopter squadron and a Navy ship. The astronauts will go through a series of evaluations and tests to make sure they're ok

The Artemis II crew splashes down to Earth tonight. But NASA missions aren't the only things getting attention in space. @nktpnd.bsky.social joins Noah Tan to unpack the concept of nuclear weapons in space (and why it's a bad idea).

I've been listening to the project hail mary OST in the background quietly while the Artemis II livestream has been on the last few days and now watching them get ready to come back to earth with it playing is making me very emotional

Can't believe they're making the Artemis II astronauts reverse-park when they come back

The Artemis II mission and crew were announced in April of 2023, but of course he's going to take credit for it.

AH! I'm anxious about the Artemis II re-entry this evening.

Retired Canadian Astronaut @cmdr-hadfield.bsky.social describes what that might look like.

"They're falling all the way from the Moon."

40,000km/hour. Temperatures of up to 3000 degrees Celsius.

Good luck Artemis II!

a man in a green shirt is blowing his nose into a paper bag .. ALT: a man in a green shirt is blowing his nose into a paper bag ..

Omg, Artemis II splashdown is in less then 6 hours.

The Artemis II crew had a painfully awkward, dead-silent call with Trump where he rambled about Wayne Gretzky and saving NASA.

Then they get on the horn with Carney and they're laughing their asses off about maple syrup vs. Nutella.

The vibe difference is insane. 🚀

Marco Scubio tasked with retrieving Artemis II astronauts

there's a lot of people drawing art based on what they think are photos of the moon from the Artemis II mission, but please be aware the picture circulating is *NOT* and it's actually an enhanced picture by this photographer linked below!

please don't spread misinfo and credit the OG artist!!

A two strand necklace. The longer, thicker silver chain has a big polished chrysocolla sphere in the center. The shorter, finer silver chain has a smaller faceted labradorite. Together, they look like the Earth and our moon.

I love our species's audacity to shoot for the moon.

My audacious act this morning was making this necklace in honor of the Artemis II splashdown, and still getting to work on time.

NASA to run Artemis II astronauts through obstacle course after splashdown The experiment will shape how soon future astronauts perform a moonwalk.

"After splashdown, brutal obstacle course awaits the Artemis II crew" by Elisha Sauers for Mashable
mashable.com/article/nasa...

How many of the companies who helped build and get Artemis II into space are also helping to build and bomb Lebanon right now?