5:10 PM PT -- It was a picture perfect splashdown in the Pacific Ocean ... right on time at 5:07 PM PT. The capsule floated down to the water under 3 deployed parachutes, just minutes after it was speeding through the air at more than 23,000 MPH!
Naval boats are speeding toward the capsule to recover the Artemis crew.
Artemis II is wrapping up its historic mission after nine and a half days ... and it’s all coming back down to Earth in a big way, which you can watch on the livestream here.
Astronauts -- Christina Koch, Victor Glover, Jeremy Hansen, and Commander Reid Wiseman -- are set to make a Pacific splashdown off the coast of San Diego at around 8:07 PM EDT.
NASA says a U.S. Navy helicopter will track the Orion capsule as it re-enters Earth’s atmosphere, with boats set to recover the crew once they’re down.
9:22 AM PT -- Arguments have officially ended in Diddy's appeal, and the judges will now begin their decision-making process. During the hearing, Diddy's lawyers mentioned Cassie Ventura's alleged drug use, which they were not allowed to present during the federal trial.
They also mentioned a "hotel night" -- another term for the freak-offs Diddy enjoyed -- with "Jane," which wasn't connected to any threat. The lawyers shared their hope for an expedited ruling on the part of the judges ... though it's unclear how long it will take them to decide.
Sean Diddy Combs could be a free man today, after his lawyers appear before a federal appeals court and argue his freak-offs were not a violation of any law ... rather, it was kinky porn that is protected by the U.S. Constitution.
Fact is ... it's a solid argument. Diddy was convicted of the Mann Act -- which prohibits the transportation of prostitutes across state lines to engage in sex acts.
Diddy's lawyers claim the Mann Act doesn't apply ... "Freak-offs and hotel nights were highly choreographed sexual performances involving the use of costumes, role play, and staged lighting which were filmed so Combs and his girlfriends could watch this amateur pornography later. Pornography production and viewing of this sort is protected by the First Amendment and thus cannot constitutionally be prosecuted."
Taylor Frankie Paul is getting her day in court ... going toe-to-toe with her ex Dakota Mortensen in a protection hearing ... and a judge is giving Taylor supervised parent time with their two-year-old son.
The judge's ruling followed an hours-long hearing in Utah ... and he says Taylor can see her son for up to 8 hours of supervised parent time each week. The judge says this is a temporary custody arrangement for 3 weeks and 2 days until the next court hearing on April 30. Taylor can break up the 8 hours with her kid into 2-hour or 3-hour increments.
Dakota previously filed a temporary restraining order against TFP and is asking the court to extend the protective order into a long-term one, as authoritiesinvestigate accusations of domestic violence, which Dakota brought against Taylor.
Remember ... the temporary protective order meant that Taylor also temporarily lost custody of the couple's 2-year-old son, Ever.
NASA’s Artemis II is about to reach a huge milestone -- the crew’s closest pass to the moon -- and you can watch it all go down live here.
Four astronauts -- Christina Koch, Victor Glover, Jeremy Hansen, and Commander Reid Wiseman -- are making history, heading to the moon for the first lunar mission in more than 50 years ... and this flyby is the closest they’ll get.
It’s a major flex for space travel too -- they’re going farther than any humans ever have, beating the record set by Apollo 12. Their Orion spacecraft is now deep in the moon’s orbit following Wednesday's lift-off, officially feeling more pull from the moon than the Earth.
In perhaps the most ambitious space mission of the last 5 decades, NASA is sending 4 astronauts around the moon and back ... the historic launch blasted off from Florida and the astronauts are now in space.
So far, everything appears to be going smoothly ... Artemis II lifted off Wednesday afternoon from Cape Canaveral and the astronauts are now in their capsule in high Earth orbit.
The lunar flyby mission -- named Artemis II -- is a test flight, acting as just one more step towards the future goal of not just visiting the moon, but staying there.
NASA is planning to focus on designing a moon base where astronauts can spend weeks or months at a time carrying out research and technology development.
