![\"\"](\"https:\/\/cdn.arstechnica.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/55193071311_6d823dae65_4k.jpg\")
<\/p>\n
The Artemis II crew onboard the Orion spacecraft (left to right): Victor Glover, Jeremy Hansen, Reid Wiseman, and Christina Koch.<\/p>\n
Credit:
\n NASA<\/p>\n<\/figure>\n
More to come<\/h2>\n
The astronauts beamed down some of their lunar imagery through the Orion spacecraft\u2019s laser communications link. The rest of the photos, along with more detailed recordings of their observations, will come back to Earth when the mission ends on Friday.<\/p>\n
The Earth is getting larger in Orion\u2019s windows as gravity pulls the astronauts back home. Their speed will increase until they hit the top of the atmosphere at some 25,000 mph. After streaking high over the Pacific Ocean, the capsule will deploy three main parachutes to slow its descent for a gentle splashdown off the coast of Southern California, where a US Navy recovery ship will await its homecoming.<\/p>\n
The splashdown will mark the end of Artemis II\u2019s nine-day voyage, the first trip to the Moon by humans since 1972. Artemis II is a test flight designed to pave the way for future crew landings near the Moon\u2019s south pole, and the eventual construction of a lunar base. It is also the first time people have flown inside NASA\u2019s Orion Moon ship, a capsule somewhat larger than the three-person Apollo command module.<\/p>\n
,<\/p>\n
\u201cWe have loved living in Orion,\u201d said Christina Koch, mission specialist on Artemis II. \u201cIn fact, we\u2019ve all said that sometimes you can forget where you really are, because we\u2019re in this small space that just gives us everything we need.\u201d<\/p>\n
Living in microgravity makes the cramped quarters seem a little more accommodating. The astronauts can take advantage of every corner of the spacecraft.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt is bigger in microgravity, and yes, we are bumping into each other 100 percent of the time,\u201d Koch said. \u201cA phrase that you often hear in the cabin is, \u2018Don\u2019t move your foot. I\u2019m just going to reach for something right under it.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n
NASA named the crew members for the Artemis II mission three years ago. Now, the astronauts will have their names in the history books. With Artemis II, the number of people alive who have traveled to the vicinity of the Moon has nearly doubled. Just five of the 24 men who flew to the Moon are still alive. Four of them walked on its surface.<\/p>\n
\u201cI will miss this camaraderie. I will miss being this close with this many people and having a common purpose, a common mission,\u201d Koch said. \u201cThis sense of teamwork is something that you don\u2019t usually get as an adult. I mean, we are close, like brothers and sisters, and that is a privilege we will never have again.\u201d<\/p>\n
One of the most poignant moments of the mission was a tribute to Wiseman\u2019s late wife, Carroll, who died of cancer in 2020. On Monday, as the crew neared the Moon, Hansen radioed down the crew\u2019s request to name a crater for Carroll.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhen Jeremy spelled Carol\u2019s name, C-A-R-R-O-L- L, I think, for me, that\u2019s when I was overwhelmed with emotion,\u201d Wiseman said. \u201cAnd I looked over and Christina was crying. I put my hand down on Jeremy\u2019s hand as he was still talking. I could just tell he was trembling, and we all pretty much broke down right there. And just for me, personally, that was kind of the pinnacle moment of the mission. For me, that was, I think, where the four of us were the most forged, the most bonded, and we came out of that really focused on the day ahead.\u201d<\/p>\n
,<\/p>\n
One big test remains in front of the Artemis II crew. Reentry and splashdown will be one of the riskiest moments of the mission. On Artemis I, the first unpiloted test flight of the Orion spacecraft, the capsule\u2019s heat shield began to break apart during reentry. The thermal barrier on the bottom of the capsule had enough margin to withstand the charring, and the spacecraft safely splashed down. If astronauts had been onboard, they would have been fine.<\/p>\n
On Artemis II, NASA will fly the capsule at a different angle during reentry to ease the thermal stress on the heat shield. \u201cWe\u2019ve still got two more days, and riding a fireball through the atmosphere is profound as well,\u201d Glover said.<\/p>\n
Soon after Wednesday night\u2019s call with reporters, the crew pointed a video camera out of one of Orion\u2019s windows. Nearly 200,000 miles away, the crescent Earth appeared to hang in a black void, resembling the smile of the Cheshire Cat in Alice in Wonderland. <\/em>It was a reminder of the words of astronaut Jim Lovell, who remarked on the \u201cvast loneliness\u201d in deep space as he flew around the Moon on the Apollo 8 mission in 1968. \u201cIt makes you realize what you have back there on Earth. The Earth, from here, is a grand oasis in the big vastness of space,\u201d said Lovell, who died last year.<\/p>\n Hansen, Artemis II\u2019s Canadian crew member, added to this sentiment.<\/p>\n \u201cWe live on a fragile planet in the vacuum, in the void of space,\u201d Hansen said. \u201cWe know this from science. We\u2019re very fortunate to live on planet Earth. Another perspective that I\u2019ve sort of learned from others through life is that our purpose on the planet as humans is to find joy, to find the joy in lifting each other up by creating solutions together instead of destroying. When you see it from out here, it doesn\u2019t change it. It just absolutely reaffirms that. It\u2019s almost like seeing living proof of it.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" On the home stretch of their nine-day mission, the four astronauts flying aboard NASA\u2019s Orion spacecraft are just beginning to reflect on their experience of flying beyond the Moon. Their memories of Monday\u2019s encounter with the Moon are still fresh as they return to Earth, heading for reentry and splashdown in the Pacific Ocean on […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":44032,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[304,5942,784,1545,785,625,190,640,786,1418,788],"class_list":["post-44030","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","tag-artemis","tag-artemis-ii","tag-christina-koch","tag-human-spaceflight","tag-jeremy-hansen","tag-moon","tag-nasa","tag-orion","tag-reid-wiseman","tag-solar-eclipse","tag-victor-glover"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/44030"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=44030"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/44030\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/44032"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=44030"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=44030"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=44030"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}