WATCH: Artemis II crew returns to Earth

The astronauts of NASA's Artemis II mission splashed down Friday evening off the coast of San Diego after their record-setting voyage around the far side of the moon.

The crew hit the Pacific Ocean at 8:07 p.m. EDT.

During their nearly 10 days in the Orion spacecraft, NASA astronauts Reid Wiseman, Victor Glover and Christina Koch and Canadian Space Agency astronaut Jeremy Hansen traveled more than 250,000 miles from Earth, a new record for human travel in space. They also gathered intergalactic images of a lunar eclipse and the Earth setting behind the moon.

Orion's "fireball" return to Earth's atmosphere was set to hit speeds of around 24,000 miles per hour. The USS John P. Murtha was in place to fetch the crew, with military planes and helicopters also available to assist.

During the previous Orion test flight to the moon, the spacecraft's heat shield suffered considerable damage, causing some scientists to express concern for the Artemis II mission. Instead of delaying the mission and replacing the heat shield, NASA adjusted the craft's path of descent to cut down on the heat exposure.

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