SAN DIEGO (FOX 5/KUSI) — NASA is sending four astronauts to fly around the moon in the first attempt to send humans through deep space and beyond low Earth orbit since Apollo 17 in 1972, and San Diego is playing a role in this historic feat.
- Video above: Astronauts speak about Artemis II recovery on March 31, 2025
When the 10-day Artemis II Moon Mission comes to an end, the astronauts will be splashing down in the Pacific Ocean off the coast of San Diego while a recovery crew awaits them.
Watch: SpaceX spacecraft carrying crew splashes down with sonic boom off San Diego coast
The four-person Artemis II crew will fly by the far side of the moon, taking off from Kennedy Space Center in Florida with a launch planned for April 1.
NASA astronauts Reid Wiseman, Victor Glover, and Christina Koch, and Canadian Space Agency astronaut Jeremy Hansen, are slated to splash down in the Pacific Ocean several miles off the San Diego coast on April 10 after traveling around the moon in a figure-eight pattern.
Once they splash down, NASA’s Artemis Landing and Recovery team and U.S. Department of War personnel will be assisting the crew out of the Orion spacecraft to transport them to a waiting recovery ship.
The teams have been training for the actual splashdown for several years.
Once Orion reenters the Earth’s atmosphere, multiple series of parachutes will deploy, slowing the spacecraft from 25,000 mph at reentry to just 17 mph before it splashes down in the Pacific Ocean…