Astronauts aboard NASA’s Artemis II mission have reached the “halfway home” point as they make their return journey to Earth following a historic flight around the Moon.

“They’re halfway home,” NASA said in an update, marking a key milestone in the crew’s journey back from deep space.

The Orion spacecraft carrying the crew is expected to splash down in the Pacific Ocean at around 8:07 p.m. Eastern Time on Friday, April 10 (0007 UTC on Saturday, April 11), off the coast of San Diego, California.

Artemis II is NASA’s first crewed mission under the Artemis program, which aims to return humans to the Moon and lay the groundwork for future missions to Mars. The astronauts performed a lunar flyby—circling the Moon without landing—as part of a critical test of the spacecraft’s capabilities.

The mission is designed to evaluate Orion’s life-support systems, navigation, and communication technologies in deep space, ensuring it is safe for longer and more complex missions.

This marks the first time since the Apollo era in the 1970s that humans have traveled this far from Earth.

Artemis II follows the successful Artemis I mission in 2022, an uncrewed test flight of the Orion spacecraft. It will be followed by Artemis III, which is expected to land astronauts on the lunar surface in the coming years.

NASA said the mission is a major step forward in humanity’s renewed push for lunar exploration and its long-term goal of sending humans to Mars.