Four astronauts have returned to Earth after becoming the first humans to fly to the moon in more than 50 years.

Nasa’s Artemis 2 mission ended in a final fiery descent, with its crew facing a bone-juddering 13-minute ride through Earth’s atmosphere to the surface.

The astronauts splashed down in the Pacific Ocean around on time at 12.07pm (NZT), and the US navy will pick them up.

The capsule entered a nail-biting six-minute blackout just a few minutes from touching down as plasma heat reached a maximum around the capsule at 2760C, cutting off all communication.

Cheers broke out in the Mission Control at Houston as communication was re-established with the crew just five minutes from splashdown.

After the silence Commander Reid Wiseman, said: “Houston we have you loud and clear”.

The capsule landed exactly on schedule at 12.07pm (NZT) and appeared to have landed upright.

The recovery team will now have to wait for a while to avoid any jettisoned debris.

Re-entry was more tense than a typical space mission because the heat shield on the Orion crew capsule failed in the earlier Artemis I uncrewed test mission. It has not been replaced or redesigned, with only the trajectory tweaked to prevent a recurrence.

The astronauts travelled at a speed of about 39,000km/h – 11km per second – and had to slow down to just 32km/h for a safe landing. The spacecraft must also cope with temperatures of up to 2760C during re-entry.

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But Nasa was confident that it could get them home.

The Artemis 2 passes over Australia and New Zealand as it prepares to re-enter the Earth's atmosphere. Photo / Nasa

“Every system we’ve demonstrated over the past nine days – life support, navigation, propulsion, communications – all of it depends on the final minutes of flight,” said Amit Kshatriya, Nasa’s associate administrator, at an earlier press conference.

He added: “We have high confidence in the system, in the heat shield, and the parachutes and the recovery system that we’ve put together.”

Since Artemis 2 launched on April 1, astronauts Reid Wiseman, Victor Glover, Christina Koch and Jeremy Hansen have captivated the world with their updates and pictures of Earth and the far side of the moon.

- Agence France-Presse