• Four astronauts flew farther from Earth than anyone before.
• Mission marked first human voyage to moon in half century.
• Atmospheric re-entry posed key test of capsule’s heat shield.

The Artemis II capsule and its four-member crew streaked through Earth’s atmosphere and safely splashed down in the Pacific Ocean on Friday 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, concluding a mission that took the astronauts deeper into space than anyone had flown before.

The Artemis II flight, travelling 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.

The splashdown, about two hours before sunset, was carried by live video feed in a Nasa webcast.

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

The crew’s homecoming cleared a critical final hurdle for the Lockheed Martin-built Orion spacecraft, proving it would withstand the extreme forces of re-entry from a lunar-return trajectory.

It followed a white-knuckle, 13-minute fiery plunge through Earth’s atmosphere, generating frictional heat that sent temperatures on the capsule’s exterior soaring to some 5,000 degrees Fahrenheit (2,760 degrees Celsius).

At the peak of re-entry stress, as expected, intense heat and air compression formed a red-hot sheath of ionised gas, or plasma, that engulfed the capsule, cutting off radio communications with the crew for several minutes.

The tension broke as contact was re-established and two sets of parachutes were seen billowing from the nose of the free-falling capsule, slowing its descent to about 15 mph (25 kph) before Orion gently hit the water.

It was expected to take Nasa and US Navy teams about an hour to secure the floating capsule and assist the four astronauts out of the vehicle and fly them to a nearby recovery ship to undergo an initial medical checkup.

Stepping stone to Mars

The quartet blasted off from Cape Canaveral, Florida, on April 1, lofted into an initial Earth orbit by Nasa’s giant Space Launch System rocket before sailing on for a rare journey around the far side of the moon.

In so doing, they became the first astronauts to fly in the vicinity of Earth’s only natural satellite since the Apollo programme of the 1960s and ’70s. Glover, Koch and Hansen also made history as the first Black astronaut, the first woman and the first non-US citizen, respectively, to take part in a lunar mission.

At the flight’s peak, the Artemis astronauts reached a point 252,756 miles from Earth, exceeding the previous record of roughly 248,000 miles set in 1970 by the crew of Apollo 13.

The voyage, following the uncrewed Artemis I test flight around the moon by the Orion spacecraft in 2022, marked a critical dress rehearsal for a planned attempt later this decade to land astronauts on the lunar surface for the first time since Apollo 17 in late 1972.

The ultimate goal of the Artemis programme is to establish a long-term presence on the moon as a stepping stone to eventual human exploration of Mars.

In a historical parallel to the Cold War era of Apollo, the Artemis II mission has played out against a backdrop of political and social turmoil, including a US military conflict that has proven unpopular at home.

Unlike the Apollo era, when the United States was racing to land astronauts on the moon ahead of the Soviet Union, the Artemis programme is seeking to beat China.

For many in a global audience captivated by the latest moon shot, it reaffirmed the achievements of science and technology at a time when big tech has become widely distrusted, even feared. Opinion polling showed broad public support for the aims of the mission.

The return to Earth put the Orion spacecraft through a critical test of its heat shield, which sustained an unexpected level of scorching and stress on re-entry during its 2022 test flight. As a result, Nasa engineers altered the descent trajectory for Artemis II to reduce heat buildup and lower the risk of the capsule burning up.

Last week’s successful launch was a major milestone for the SLS rocket, handing its principal contractors, Boeing and Northrop Grumman, long-sought validation that the launch system, more than a decade in development, was ready to safely fly humans to space.

The two R&B heavyweights announced a joint concert tour on Friday, 10 April, with a shared Instagram post that read simply “IT’S TIME,” accompanied by hashtags for “R&B Tour” and “Raymond & Brown”, a nod to Usher’s full name, Usher Raymond IV. 

They also released a video showing the pair revving motorcycles before removing their helmets to face each other. 

“It’s time,” Usher said. Brown replied: “Hell yeah.” 

No further details about the tour have been revealed yet.

The announcement marks a significant update in a relationship that hit a very public low point in May 2023, when the two reportedly clashed at Brown’s 34th birthday party in Las Vegas. 

Footage obtained by TMZ showed Usher appearing to confront Brown for allegedly ignoring fellow guest Teyana Taylor. 

Brown left the venue, and Usher was later seen returning inside with what appeared to be a bloody nose. 

Neither man publicly addressed what happened, and both went on to perform their sets at Usher’s Lovers & Friends Festival the same night, with both posting upbeat messages about the evening afterwards.

The falling out was particularly notable given how close the two had been. 

Their friendship stretches back to 2005, when Brown first broke through, and they went on to collaborate on tracks including New Flame and Party. 

Even at the height of the tension, Usher had spoken warmly about what a joint project between them could look like. 

“If that ever happens, it’ll be one of the biggest things that anybody has ever experienced in entertainment in celebration of two people who love each other,” he told BigBoyTV in April 2023. 

“I love Chris. He’s my little brother, and he’s always been there for me.”

It appears that moment has now arrived.

Frankie Muniz has shared the memory of meeting his Malcolm in the Middle onscreen father Bryan Cranston for the first time, and it involved a skin-coloured Speedo.

Speaking to PEOPLE ahead of the show’s revival, Muniz, 40, recalled that Cranston was the last cast member to be confirmed, with his role as dad Hal only finalised on the morning of their first shoot together. 

“The first scene we filmed is from the pilot where Jane [Kaczmarek], or Lois, is shaving Hal’s back,” Muniz said. 

“And he came in, like, a skin-colored Speedo and was like, ‘Hey, boys, I’m going to be your dad.'” He paused before adding: “Obviously pretty awkward.”

Muniz was just 13 at the time, already buzzing from the thrill of landing the lead role. 

Meeting the rest of the cast had been exciting enough, but Cranston’s entrance was something else entirely. What nobody could have predicted at that point was how central the character of Hal would become to the show. 

“Hal originally was supposed to be such a small character… kind of like an afterthought,” Muniz said. “But Bryan is such an incredible actor and made the show, I think.”

Behind the scenes, the cast quickly settled into something that felt genuinely like a family, pranks included. 

They pinned clothespins to each other’s backs, played the circle game with enough force to leave bruises, and fought over a foosball table until the production team replaced it with a ping-pong table. 

“That was a bad idea, you couldn’t get us off it to actually film,” Muniz recalled. “We probably could have gone pro.”

Saying goodbye to it all seven years and 151 episodes later hit harder than Muniz had anticipated. 

The cast was given about a month’s notice that the show was ending, which he said helped. But nothing fully prepared him for the final day. 

“It didn’t have any effect on me like I thought it would until literally the last shot of the last day,” he said. As cameras rolled on the last scene, two or three hundred crew members who had worked on the show over the years had gathered on set. 

“I remember starting [to cry] when they started rolling, and it wasn’t for the scene, but it worked really well for the moment. It was really hard to say goodbye.”

The wrap party brought its own quiet emotions. Muniz and Jane Kaczmarek were the last two people to leave the soundstage that night.

“It hit you in that moment of, like, wait, everything I’ve known for most of my life… is ending,” he said.

Malcolm in the Middle: Life’s Still Unfair is now streaming on Hulu and Hulu on Disney+.